arrive in Istanbul Ataturk Airport in the early afternoon of 4 August and the first social impact is that with a modern, clean and efficient services, such as baggage claim, or to the center of the city , a few francs (1 € = 2 Pounds) to take subway, tram and arrive in the heart of Sulthanamet just as the voice of the muezzin calls from the minarets of the faithful to evening prayers and the first surprise me.
During his stay in Istanbul for the organization of trips, the choice of restaurants, tips on hiking will be useful source of advice blog scoprireistanbul.com, I recommend to any runner to improve the organization and nurture their curiosity.
We settle in a comfortable room at Hotel Boutique Apex, clean, economical and comfortable as reviews of Booking, where the guest is greeted with fresh fruit basket in room and bags of tea, the bathroom is large and the Ottoman-style bed.
centripetal approach gives me as the first image and the beautiful cover of memoalbum face-off between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia: Istanbul and Constantinople.
Sultanahmet includes the monumental heart of Istanbul, showing the memories of old empires and the demonstration effect of the Sultans Ottomans. First encounter the majesty of the Blue Mosque with the boast exclusive six-minaret, the absolute reference in the sky panorama of Istanbul. The richness of this building for worship, almost contemporary with the Italian Renaissance, is mainly blue Iznik ceramics that illustrate the ancient times and the work of master calligraphers and illuminators, whose catering grapes, fruit and nature, announcing the Ottoman fertility fertile eminence.
Who knows where they went to bed at night that ended the Blue Mosque was the masons.
Opposite to that grandeur, resists Hagia Sophia (or Hagia Sophia), an eternal glory that was in Constantinople, well before the turkish. Building 500, carries weight in many centuries, 1500 years of Greco-Roman and Byzantine art survived the transformation into a mosque, wars, fires and earthquakes and preserved today in the form of arbitration museum. Archetype of archetypes, Santa Sofia human genius invents the architecture of the dome, a thousand years before St. Peter and many before the mosque of Suleiman the envy Ottoman town surrendered to the peace, overcoming the diameter of curvature. Becoming Santa Sofia is like entering nell'Argan of art history. The splendor of the Byzantine mosaics contains a remnant of ancestral spirituality, really unique, inherent nell'aureola Mysticism & Art of the Christ and the Virgin, St. John the Baptist, to live permanently stained gold tiles. Coming from Rome, few churches are able to arouse the same outburst of emotional intensity. In between the two
mammesantissime monumental scrolls the secular life of Istanbul, spreading its light in a beautiful garden from the perimeter beds of begonias and pink flowered trees, enlivened by the gift of a Prussian prodigal fountain of water games. Here rest the tourists posing for photos, children playing in recovering lost shoes in the sketches of the fountain, women with headscarves and those with a burqa, while all around you animate a detail from the various tertiary and possible.
The streets of Istanbul for an infinite s'inbrulicano infantry merchant sellers of boiled corn and roasted corn, sesame buns vendors, vendors of water bottles, flower sellers, fruit vendors and Vegetable vendors of candy flowing on tap, very acrobatic ice cream vendors, sellers of small glasses of tea, apple slices, sellers, vendors of lottery numbers drawn from rabbits, sellers of designer bags of fresh mackerel sandwiches with vendors, sellers of trinkets, sales of photographs and lustratori of shoes ... all in a row for a fistful of dollars. Just before
I arrive in Istanbul started reading Orhan Pamuk, author of contemporary turkish already worthy of a Nobel Prize. The novel "My Name is Red" is a massive fresco of the fifteenth century in Turkey, set around that storied master miniaturist, sacrificing the light of their eyes, the books commissioned by the sultans and stored in the libraries of the Imperial Topkapi. The richness of the exhibition and shrewd game of writing Pamuk continue with serenity the masterful skill of these artists, making embroidery with ants ink.
at the power and home of the Ottoman sultans, the Topkapi private rooms housed the harem, where it was decided the descendants of the unlimited power and time were kept the treasures of the conquered to whole populations, together with ATTRACTIVE diplomatic gifts of rival powers. The size of the magnificence aims to cross the boundary between human and divine, and assessment of lifeblood, sucking the lives of the thousands of selected women of the harem, of illuminators and calligraphers, architects and craftsmen, diplomats and vizier. The doors of mother of pearl, the blue pottery, the colorful decorations, give the residence of the sultans dimension trasecolante unique power as a forceful desire to transubstantiation immanent. This effort has its explosion worldly pomp in the treasury of the palace Topkapi. Chests of emeralds and thrones encrusted with gold, ivory statuettes of the finest figurative. Yet stand out among so many golds to lose the gold, the famous knife of gold, diamonds and rubies el'irenico brilliance of a diamond as big as an egg and bright as a lighthouse on the island of treasure.
Remaining in Sultanahmet, not too far from the bombast of the Ottoman Topkapi, another work of Greco-Roman civil engineering is so determined to preserve the memory of pre-existing Constantinople. La Cisterna , built fifteen hundred years ago by the Byzantine emperors and later centuries and discovered by a Dutch traveler, intrigued by the unexpected spoils of fishermen metropolitan transcends the idea of \u200b\u200bcivil engineering that we imagine to be attributed to the remoteness of those centuries, in spite of the mystery of the pyramids of puffins. Hundreds of columns holding up this underground water tank just fatuous red light, where they swim historically ignorant, underground Pescioni red.
Sultanahmet addition, it is still the magnificence of the infinite magna built in Istanbul. From the dizzying Genoese tower of Galata eyes you view the Golden Horn and the minarets of the Bosphorus, while flying a flock of seagulls to make traffic even in heaven.
The ambition of this modern capital of Eurasia reveal their dynamism along the odometer Istiklal avenue leading to Taksim Square, the heart of modern, secular Turkey, traveled by thousands of laborious steps, and bustles around the lives of local youth and the music of which was the Ottoman mejo.
But in other districts and other roads has made the royal city, the outer boroughs to the tourist trails and visit us warmly lit by skilfully guided by the authors of scoprireistanbul.com.
On a morning when the heat reaches a temperature of 44 degrees at all mitigated by the perceived and bottles of water consumed in the series, we climb scapantibus & sherpantibus the streets of three central districts and cardinals: Fatih, Fener, Balat. Incidentally I would add that in Istanbul you move easily and economically by public transport, where it lacks air conditioning.
Before starting the tour, we come out in the mosque dedicated to Rustem Pasha, the hero protagonist turkish adventures of legendary cycles. As in the Blue Mosque, also triumphed here the beauty of Iznik tiles, brimming with the particularity of the color red.
Fatih is now the metropolitan area most fundamentalist and conservative, antipodal with respect to secularism proclaimed by the National Father of the fatherland Kemal Ataturk. Here live the immigrants who arrived from the hinterland and neighboring countries, sensitive to the militant fundamentalist and the lure of religious tradition.
Under the aqueduct of Valens, play cards while drinking tea, without any concession shorts and feet uncovered, the men congregated together veterovirilmente, and fast walking on the sidewalk, avoiding eyes and cool, the women dressed entirely in black heavy , her head covered by the burka, allowing himself to the limit unexpected hankering for high heels. The main street can also meet the culinary traditions of the regions of origin of quest'immigrazione and here seems to eat the best kebab in Istanbul.
In the heart of Fatih, an apparent contradiction sinistradestra European policy with respect to: an entire building wrapped in a Palestinian flag, conservative and right-hand witness to the faith of a religious conservative, my current turkish premier Erdogan. While the Turkish national flag, so often found in cities, usually indicates a secular state es'accompagna progressive positions. A Fatih, where the patriarchal and matriarchal authority to resist secularism nor has sixty known, is the rule of religion and it can happen that a girl is precluded enrollment at the University of the parents, given the ban on wearing the burqa lay in the scope of the institution. Around the shops are just traditional clothes and conform to the rule. So that is easy to meet with Fatih a young Koranic students, early career started at the imam, while in Sultanahmet a contemporary teenager walks with colored icing, punkeggiante t-shirt and converse all stars.
The unusual presence of tourists attracted curious glances, adults objectionable to Western ways, but especially children, joyful & playful, happy to greet us and maybe hoping to hurry up. A small crowd of kids salutant, the 'Hellos', there follows a mile, all posing for photos with bared teeth very anthropological in National Geographic style.
Vader, ancient greek quarter, and Balat old Jewish quarter, quarters are declared as World Heritage UNESCO. Here, for centuries, have lived, raised each brigade and human phenotype, a popular and very soul of Turkish literature. From the rich neighborhoods that were now sagging under the decline and neglect, lacking the resources to maintain these roads.
The historical events, fires and earthquakes have redrawn the human presence in the area and today there are those persistent religious ethnic characterizations. But there are villas and Victorian inspired homes, with balconies protruding like closed wooden bench, including satellite dishes, clothes hanging yellow-and / rossoazzurri pastel colors, and down a road and fig trees perfuming the air.
conclude ride visiting the church of Santa Maria never converted the Mongols, maintained at vetril shots and good will by the custodians, in disregard of the institutions in response to the mosques of the few money funds, the bizarre entirely prefabricated iron church of St. Stephen of the Bulgars and the mosaics of the most famous historical monumental complex of San Salvatore in Cora.
The view over the sea swarming with Istanbul is to Eminonou , nodal point of navigation on the Bosporus sbrilluccicante of urban blues and reflections of real life. We embark on the ferry line for a long ride on the Golden Horn, in observation of lungosponda happy citizens. Residential buildings and parade the summer houses on the Bosphorus, with their berths reserved visionamo over wooded hills and at least three bridges over the Strait, civil engineering exhibitionism with color-changing. We pass to the district of Ortakoy , where the vivacity of the local people take the time to live and to dance like in Renoir's painting.
at the front of the ferry scene is stolen by an old man probably seventy or so there, responding to the rhythm of popular music, mentions the first step, then opens the dance, and finally a show, improvising a dance floor accompanied a companion show. He, smart face final y to the South American player of the past, but simple dresses impeccably comfortable barber for a friend and mindful of the movements in his youth who was well-spent surplus dance hall. She forty badly worn or taken maybe sixty good, thin as a nail, a friendly smile and a gentle look of leggings girl from Berlin Zoo. Underscore the public's applause improvised performance.
We also visit the Dolmabahce , nineteenth-century residence of the sultans, a Versailles at the end of an empire or led Schonbrun. Walk on the floor by protecting them with terrifying Domopak boots, without pity for the hot weather. The abundance of lounges and lights show the compromise of a historical and cultural empire that monarchizza. Here settles Republic also stop the clock until the death of Ataturk. Today the guards are guarding the gates of Turkish militants on the sea, if they were ornaments er ...
Near Bosphorus Dolmabahce it highlights the Besiktas, popular, modern, food, fish market and shops of contemporary technology.
soul completely different in the two great merchant city markets. In Eminonou area, Secular inward in the streets, poured out the Spice Bazaar . Powders, seeds and fruits from the Arabian way, echoes of camel caravans & marcopolo missing in the past to arrive today in this retail photogenic scenery in the Dolomites, mountains curry, cinnamon, pepper, coriander and cumin, caramelized walnuts and glazed, candied nuts, pistachios and hot clouds, jellies and teas ... shades of green, yellow, profuse, ocher and purple in the air. Here it is easy to feel lucky after buying a bag of saffron price peanuts for monkeys ... Standing out in contrast to the spices and purchase a t-shirt red urchin, because the more that he could smell the color.
But the triumph of detail, the transubstantiation of the sale is Kapalicarsi, the Grand Bazaar which by extension makes every province and offers inspiration to Western prices from the Near East. In an anthill of humanity handmade pottery and made in china, rugs and doormats by copyright department, leather jackets and coats in cardboard, scrap textile manufacturing tall and thereby generated counterfeit items therein. Jewelry and costume jewelry and souvenirs to silver per gram pound bags in large assortment controgriffate signed and from the skin all'ecocartone. Just click and pay, dealing with means.
And finally the kitchen. As results in jaw bites for this immense flow of life and history? In & around everywhere, what a question. In Istanbul, the "street food" has universal dimensions of capital. The sandwiches with mackerel or skewers of fried mussels are easily Eminonou or long pauses ride on the Bosphorus, but most missed is the "Kump" which sells at Ortakoy: potato in ashes, filled with avalanches of bendidìo and sauces will and desirable "lamakun", the Turkish pizza to be eaten with a splash lemon bending it to manual. Mention of honor in part to the kebab, often thrown there, as they throw the coal to the coliseum.
As to restaurants, where to eat with the average of thirty crowns (15 €) in two, it is worth tasting the beans to the pot of "Kurufasulye, Sirkeci, almost opposite the station of the Orient Express," kofte "- meatballs - Sulthanamet, Turkish restaurant for good though too fast or "kokorec" for lovers of the fifth quarter, a sort of spicy lamb pagliatina, really good ol '"Imam fainted", eggplant baked with slices of sweet onions and peppers .
E 'an evening of miracles in Sultanahmet. We want to celebrate anniversaries and let that nice restaurant where we read, where the Ottoman cuisine is the draw and traditional knowledge. Let the Karakol, we walk in the moonlight the roads bordering the Topkapi but here there is no sign that will show us the way, so that we turn to the local authorities who are two policemen guarding the world, Please make it clear that we must knock, knock knock and access to inside the garden itself was once the ancient residence of the sultans. But do knock knock at a door of iron four meters high and wide as it does not produce a muffled sound. Topkapi buzz, you can not. But we see that it was fate. A boy with his partner bell'estrazione polished, settle in front of that output, and it so happens that they are friends of the owner of the premises and kindly offer to let us in, telephoning where apres what you want and more not asking. Thus, two policemen are opening the door, pulling heavy chain and cross that that was the Sublime Porte, the threshold of the age-old desire for infinitely many subjects, door also feared by the protagonists of novels, just as happens all'attonito Black star of the book I'm reading Pamuk. And there are no queues of tourists, crazy morning at ticket offices and clik clik photography. There's just us, Cesaroni smell of magic in the Western moment. The restaurant is not what we had read: it is at a level much higher. A nurse, two waiters and the owner of the premises meet us and make us sit at a table with a very fine linen tablecloths, high forchetterie board and blown glass. And there we are that we, obviously that threshold inhibits the customer opens random but usually referenced to. 's cool, you're right, there is the Topkapi everything for us. We count the segments and order. The menu shows the range of food at least three long lines of Baroque seasoned, and our choices fall on patties and sirloin imbalsamizzati & aromatic sautéed, steamed, sauteed, cheffizzati. Suddenly there are twelve million people in perpetual whirl on the road or tourist interest, but a beauty dedicated just for us. Let's go by the photos, the gate of the Topkapi reopen for us and we carry away a souvenir of those as well if we do photos, real memory is etched in memory. Let's face it, Istanbul is well worth a birthday.
During his stay in Istanbul for the organization of trips, the choice of restaurants, tips on hiking will be useful source of advice blog scoprireistanbul.com, I recommend to any runner to improve the organization and nurture their curiosity.
We settle in a comfortable room at Hotel Boutique Apex, clean, economical and comfortable as reviews of Booking, where the guest is greeted with fresh fruit basket in room and bags of tea, the bathroom is large and the Ottoman-style bed.
centripetal approach gives me as the first image and the beautiful cover of memoalbum face-off between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia: Istanbul and Constantinople.
Sultanahmet includes the monumental heart of Istanbul, showing the memories of old empires and the demonstration effect of the Sultans Ottomans. First encounter the majesty of the Blue Mosque with the boast exclusive six-minaret, the absolute reference in the sky panorama of Istanbul. The richness of this building for worship, almost contemporary with the Italian Renaissance, is mainly blue Iznik ceramics that illustrate the ancient times and the work of master calligraphers and illuminators, whose catering grapes, fruit and nature, announcing the Ottoman fertility fertile eminence.
Who knows where they went to bed at night that ended the Blue Mosque was the masons.
Opposite to that grandeur, resists Hagia Sophia (or Hagia Sophia), an eternal glory that was in Constantinople, well before the turkish. Building 500, carries weight in many centuries, 1500 years of Greco-Roman and Byzantine art survived the transformation into a mosque, wars, fires and earthquakes and preserved today in the form of arbitration museum. Archetype of archetypes, Santa Sofia human genius invents the architecture of the dome, a thousand years before St. Peter and many before the mosque of Suleiman the envy Ottoman town surrendered to the peace, overcoming the diameter of curvature. Becoming Santa Sofia is like entering nell'Argan of art history. The splendor of the Byzantine mosaics contains a remnant of ancestral spirituality, really unique, inherent nell'aureola Mysticism & Art of the Christ and the Virgin, St. John the Baptist, to live permanently stained gold tiles. Coming from Rome, few churches are able to arouse the same outburst of emotional intensity. In between the two
mammesantissime monumental scrolls the secular life of Istanbul, spreading its light in a beautiful garden from the perimeter beds of begonias and pink flowered trees, enlivened by the gift of a Prussian prodigal fountain of water games. Here rest the tourists posing for photos, children playing in recovering lost shoes in the sketches of the fountain, women with headscarves and those with a burqa, while all around you animate a detail from the various tertiary and possible.
The streets of Istanbul for an infinite s'inbrulicano infantry merchant sellers of boiled corn and roasted corn, sesame buns vendors, vendors of water bottles, flower sellers, fruit vendors and Vegetable vendors of candy flowing on tap, very acrobatic ice cream vendors, sellers of small glasses of tea, apple slices, sellers, vendors of lottery numbers drawn from rabbits, sellers of designer bags of fresh mackerel sandwiches with vendors, sellers of trinkets, sales of photographs and lustratori of shoes ... all in a row for a fistful of dollars. Just before
I arrive in Istanbul started reading Orhan Pamuk, author of contemporary turkish already worthy of a Nobel Prize. The novel "My Name is Red" is a massive fresco of the fifteenth century in Turkey, set around that storied master miniaturist, sacrificing the light of their eyes, the books commissioned by the sultans and stored in the libraries of the Imperial Topkapi. The richness of the exhibition and shrewd game of writing Pamuk continue with serenity the masterful skill of these artists, making embroidery with ants ink.
at the power and home of the Ottoman sultans, the Topkapi private rooms housed the harem, where it was decided the descendants of the unlimited power and time were kept the treasures of the conquered to whole populations, together with ATTRACTIVE diplomatic gifts of rival powers. The size of the magnificence aims to cross the boundary between human and divine, and assessment of lifeblood, sucking the lives of the thousands of selected women of the harem, of illuminators and calligraphers, architects and craftsmen, diplomats and vizier. The doors of mother of pearl, the blue pottery, the colorful decorations, give the residence of the sultans dimension trasecolante unique power as a forceful desire to transubstantiation immanent. This effort has its explosion worldly pomp in the treasury of the palace Topkapi. Chests of emeralds and thrones encrusted with gold, ivory statuettes of the finest figurative. Yet stand out among so many golds to lose the gold, the famous knife of gold, diamonds and rubies el'irenico brilliance of a diamond as big as an egg and bright as a lighthouse on the island of treasure.
Remaining in Sultanahmet, not too far from the bombast of the Ottoman Topkapi, another work of Greco-Roman civil engineering is so determined to preserve the memory of pre-existing Constantinople. La Cisterna , built fifteen hundred years ago by the Byzantine emperors and later centuries and discovered by a Dutch traveler, intrigued by the unexpected spoils of fishermen metropolitan transcends the idea of \u200b\u200bcivil engineering that we imagine to be attributed to the remoteness of those centuries, in spite of the mystery of the pyramids of puffins. Hundreds of columns holding up this underground water tank just fatuous red light, where they swim historically ignorant, underground Pescioni red.
Sultanahmet addition, it is still the magnificence of the infinite magna built in Istanbul. From the dizzying Genoese tower of Galata eyes you view the Golden Horn and the minarets of the Bosphorus, while flying a flock of seagulls to make traffic even in heaven.
The ambition of this modern capital of Eurasia reveal their dynamism along the odometer Istiklal avenue leading to Taksim Square, the heart of modern, secular Turkey, traveled by thousands of laborious steps, and bustles around the lives of local youth and the music of which was the Ottoman mejo.
But in other districts and other roads has made the royal city, the outer boroughs to the tourist trails and visit us warmly lit by skilfully guided by the authors of scoprireistanbul.com.
On a morning when the heat reaches a temperature of 44 degrees at all mitigated by the perceived and bottles of water consumed in the series, we climb scapantibus & sherpantibus the streets of three central districts and cardinals: Fatih, Fener, Balat. Incidentally I would add that in Istanbul you move easily and economically by public transport, where it lacks air conditioning.
Before starting the tour, we come out in the mosque dedicated to Rustem Pasha, the hero protagonist turkish adventures of legendary cycles. As in the Blue Mosque, also triumphed here the beauty of Iznik tiles, brimming with the particularity of the color red.
Fatih is now the metropolitan area most fundamentalist and conservative, antipodal with respect to secularism proclaimed by the National Father of the fatherland Kemal Ataturk. Here live the immigrants who arrived from the hinterland and neighboring countries, sensitive to the militant fundamentalist and the lure of religious tradition.
Under the aqueduct of Valens, play cards while drinking tea, without any concession shorts and feet uncovered, the men congregated together veterovirilmente, and fast walking on the sidewalk, avoiding eyes and cool, the women dressed entirely in black heavy , her head covered by the burka, allowing himself to the limit unexpected hankering for high heels. The main street can also meet the culinary traditions of the regions of origin of quest'immigrazione and here seems to eat the best kebab in Istanbul.
In the heart of Fatih, an apparent contradiction sinistradestra European policy with respect to: an entire building wrapped in a Palestinian flag, conservative and right-hand witness to the faith of a religious conservative, my current turkish premier Erdogan. While the Turkish national flag, so often found in cities, usually indicates a secular state es'accompagna progressive positions. A Fatih, where the patriarchal and matriarchal authority to resist secularism nor has sixty known, is the rule of religion and it can happen that a girl is precluded enrollment at the University of the parents, given the ban on wearing the burqa lay in the scope of the institution. Around the shops are just traditional clothes and conform to the rule. So that is easy to meet with Fatih a young Koranic students, early career started at the imam, while in Sultanahmet a contemporary teenager walks with colored icing, punkeggiante t-shirt and converse all stars.
The unusual presence of tourists attracted curious glances, adults objectionable to Western ways, but especially children, joyful & playful, happy to greet us and maybe hoping to hurry up. A small crowd of kids salutant, the 'Hellos', there follows a mile, all posing for photos with bared teeth very anthropological in National Geographic style.
Vader, ancient greek quarter, and Balat old Jewish quarter, quarters are declared as World Heritage UNESCO. Here, for centuries, have lived, raised each brigade and human phenotype, a popular and very soul of Turkish literature. From the rich neighborhoods that were now sagging under the decline and neglect, lacking the resources to maintain these roads.
The historical events, fires and earthquakes have redrawn the human presence in the area and today there are those persistent religious ethnic characterizations. But there are villas and Victorian inspired homes, with balconies protruding like closed wooden bench, including satellite dishes, clothes hanging yellow-and / rossoazzurri pastel colors, and down a road and fig trees perfuming the air.
conclude ride visiting the church of Santa Maria never converted the Mongols, maintained at vetril shots and good will by the custodians, in disregard of the institutions in response to the mosques of the few money funds, the bizarre entirely prefabricated iron church of St. Stephen of the Bulgars and the mosaics of the most famous historical monumental complex of San Salvatore in Cora.
The view over the sea swarming with Istanbul is to Eminonou , nodal point of navigation on the Bosporus sbrilluccicante of urban blues and reflections of real life. We embark on the ferry line for a long ride on the Golden Horn, in observation of lungosponda happy citizens. Residential buildings and parade the summer houses on the Bosphorus, with their berths reserved visionamo over wooded hills and at least three bridges over the Strait, civil engineering exhibitionism with color-changing. We pass to the district of Ortakoy , where the vivacity of the local people take the time to live and to dance like in Renoir's painting.
at the front of the ferry scene is stolen by an old man probably seventy or so there, responding to the rhythm of popular music, mentions the first step, then opens the dance, and finally a show, improvising a dance floor accompanied a companion show. He, smart face final y to the South American player of the past, but simple dresses impeccably comfortable barber for a friend and mindful of the movements in his youth who was well-spent surplus dance hall. She forty badly worn or taken maybe sixty good, thin as a nail, a friendly smile and a gentle look of leggings girl from Berlin Zoo. Underscore the public's applause improvised performance.
We also visit the Dolmabahce , nineteenth-century residence of the sultans, a Versailles at the end of an empire or led Schonbrun. Walk on the floor by protecting them with terrifying Domopak boots, without pity for the hot weather. The abundance of lounges and lights show the compromise of a historical and cultural empire that monarchizza. Here settles Republic also stop the clock until the death of Ataturk. Today the guards are guarding the gates of Turkish militants on the sea, if they were ornaments er ...
Near Bosphorus Dolmabahce it highlights the Besiktas, popular, modern, food, fish market and shops of contemporary technology.
soul completely different in the two great merchant city markets. In Eminonou area, Secular inward in the streets, poured out the Spice Bazaar . Powders, seeds and fruits from the Arabian way, echoes of camel caravans & marcopolo missing in the past to arrive today in this retail photogenic scenery in the Dolomites, mountains curry, cinnamon, pepper, coriander and cumin, caramelized walnuts and glazed, candied nuts, pistachios and hot clouds, jellies and teas ... shades of green, yellow, profuse, ocher and purple in the air. Here it is easy to feel lucky after buying a bag of saffron price peanuts for monkeys ... Standing out in contrast to the spices and purchase a t-shirt red urchin, because the more that he could smell the color.
But the triumph of detail, the transubstantiation of the sale is Kapalicarsi, the Grand Bazaar which by extension makes every province and offers inspiration to Western prices from the Near East. In an anthill of humanity handmade pottery and made in china, rugs and doormats by copyright department, leather jackets and coats in cardboard, scrap textile manufacturing tall and thereby generated counterfeit items therein. Jewelry and costume jewelry and souvenirs to silver per gram pound bags in large assortment controgriffate signed and from the skin all'ecocartone. Just click and pay, dealing with means.
And finally the kitchen. As results in jaw bites for this immense flow of life and history? In & around everywhere, what a question. In Istanbul, the "street food" has universal dimensions of capital. The sandwiches with mackerel or skewers of fried mussels are easily Eminonou or long pauses ride on the Bosphorus, but most missed is the "Kump" which sells at Ortakoy: potato in ashes, filled with avalanches of bendidìo and sauces will and desirable "lamakun", the Turkish pizza to be eaten with a splash lemon bending it to manual. Mention of honor in part to the kebab, often thrown there, as they throw the coal to the coliseum.
As to restaurants, where to eat with the average of thirty crowns (15 €) in two, it is worth tasting the beans to the pot of "Kurufasulye, Sirkeci, almost opposite the station of the Orient Express," kofte "- meatballs - Sulthanamet, Turkish restaurant for good though too fast or "kokorec" for lovers of the fifth quarter, a sort of spicy lamb pagliatina, really good ol '"Imam fainted", eggplant baked with slices of sweet onions and peppers .
E 'an evening of miracles in Sultanahmet. We want to celebrate anniversaries and let that nice restaurant where we read, where the Ottoman cuisine is the draw and traditional knowledge. Let the Karakol, we walk in the moonlight the roads bordering the Topkapi but here there is no sign that will show us the way, so that we turn to the local authorities who are two policemen guarding the world, Please make it clear that we must knock, knock knock and access to inside the garden itself was once the ancient residence of the sultans. But do knock knock at a door of iron four meters high and wide as it does not produce a muffled sound. Topkapi buzz, you can not. But we see that it was fate. A boy with his partner bell'estrazione polished, settle in front of that output, and it so happens that they are friends of the owner of the premises and kindly offer to let us in, telephoning where apres what you want and more not asking. Thus, two policemen are opening the door, pulling heavy chain and cross that that was the Sublime Porte, the threshold of the age-old desire for infinitely many subjects, door also feared by the protagonists of novels, just as happens all'attonito Black star of the book I'm reading Pamuk. And there are no queues of tourists, crazy morning at ticket offices and clik clik photography. There's just us, Cesaroni smell of magic in the Western moment. The restaurant is not what we had read: it is at a level much higher. A nurse, two waiters and the owner of the premises meet us and make us sit at a table with a very fine linen tablecloths, high forchetterie board and blown glass. And there we are that we, obviously that threshold inhibits the customer opens random but usually referenced to. 's cool, you're right, there is the Topkapi everything for us. We count the segments and order. The menu shows the range of food at least three long lines of Baroque seasoned, and our choices fall on patties and sirloin imbalsamizzati & aromatic sautéed, steamed, sauteed, cheffizzati. Suddenly there are twelve million people in perpetual whirl on the road or tourist interest, but a beauty dedicated just for us. Let's go by the photos, the gate of the Topkapi reopen for us and we carry away a souvenir of those as well if we do photos, real memory is etched in memory. Let's face it, Istanbul is well worth a birthday.
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