Istanbul adventures

Formerly Constantinople, this cosmopolitan city that sits across the 2 continents had no semblance to the places we had visited so far except the language and the culture. Istanbul is ultra-modern with its strategic location, a melting pot of business, trade and tourism and yet has managed to preserve the thousands of years of history and religion in the 3000+ mosques, castles, palaces, baazars. After all, it’s the same history that morphed it into its modern day position in the world.

We had the first day to explore the city on our own, so we rode the Metro and soaked in the hustle and bustle at the Taksim square with a side of pigeon droppings on some of us after the birds were over fed by the 8 kids! My solo morning 5K run through the old city and along the Bosphorus sea charged me up and opened up my appetite for the European breakfast spread of various cheeses, eggs, coffee and yogurt-muesli-fruits bowl. Istiklal street lived upto its hype lined with shops and over a dozen “magic Icecream” traps.

We followed our hotel Levni’s warm and friendly front desk staff, Nural’s suggestion and climbed up to the terrace of the Konak cafe next to Galata tower for panoramic views of this iconic city as well as the Galata tower while enjoying Turkish coffee and desserts on a perfectly sunny cool day.

The Al fresco lunch of pasta, veggie quesadilla in Asia at the Iki Yaka cafe, one of the many waterfront restaurants was quite delicious.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the streets of this lively city, with limited time in the famous Grand Baazar housing over 3000 little shops selling goods ranging from silver jewelry, Turkish leather jackets, sweets/spices/nuts/dry-fruits to fake branded Nike, Prada, Gucci shoes, hand bags, suit cases and sunglasses. Most of the shops were closing or closed due to Ramadan when we reached around 6-6.15pm allowing us little time to practice our bargaining skills, a necessity in this 100s of year old historic shopping district.

While few of us were at the Baazar, the rest of our group members were enjoying the pampering at the salon across from Levni hotel and emerged as brand new good looking people after their chic inexpensive haircuts. The remaining time in Istanbul, I couldn’t help but notice how the men had such well-groomed hairdos, a major factor in their dashing good looks.

The cacophony of Sultanhamet that I witnessed at 7.30am had persisted throughout the day and well into the night on the streets, the 100s of cafes and sweet shops selling varieties of Baklavas, Turkish delights, Halvas amongst other treats. Immersing myself in this sensory overload from the uniqueness of this conglomerate of experiences brings me profound pleasure and makes these world cities distinctly special.

The 8 adults hung out at a hip restaurant with a night club like fun vibe called the Lotiz Lounge and Hookah bar at night. The falafel appetizer was decent, the hummus and Tzatziki were alright but then we were barely hungry since the 4pm lunch.