Tom likes to be conservative about leaving plenty of time to get to the airport and it turned out to be a very good thing for us today.

The hotel arranged our ride and ushered us into the van that came, but they sent us to the wrong airport! In a van full of other passengers, there was nothing to do but sit and cross our fingers. The trip was an hour in the wrong direction.

As it always does, things worked out and we got there in time. Barely.

There was another farce at the airport when we found out our Cairo flight is sometimes run by Turkish Airlines and sometimes by Egypt Airlines, without any real pattern. Running around the airport trying to track down the right check-in counter was pretty funny.

We were very glad to see Turkish Airlines in charge today. I do not know how they manage to do it, but the food they serve has been at least very good and sometimes excellent. Tom ordered swordfish that was properly  cooked and my mushroom ravioli had a flourish of black chanterelles. Then there was the creamy baked rice pudding that was better than any rice pudding we’ve ever had on the ground.

The misadventure had one positive note: We crossed from Old Stanboul, which is in Europe to Istanboul’s Asian side. Now we can say that in the space of just a couple of hours, we will  have set foot on three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa.

We were not so lucky when we got to Cairo. Our stay is going to be short so I booked a guide for a couple of days. The travel agency booked us into an absolutely filthy and unsafe hotel with fantastic views of the pyramids of Cheops and Chafre.

We thought we’d escape our dismal prison by going for a walk somewhere. The bellman got us a taxi and promised we’d be going someplace with restaurants and shops to browse. Where we wound up was in the middle of a six-lane road with cars racing around like it was Sears Point. The only way to cross was by foot and at great danger to our lives.

HOTEL REVIEW: Hotel Kaoud aka Delta Pyramids

So you might wonder, how bad was the hotel? In the restaurant I could watch  the dishwashing station was right by the door. Unfortunately I saw them “drying” dishes with sopping wet towels, even dropping the towels on the heavily-trafficked floor only to pick them back up and return to infecting the dishes.

The elevator was, at first, charmingly idiosyncratic. Wheezy and reluctant to start, we felt like we had to do our best impressions of Mrs. Mears (Thoroughly Modern Millie) and tap dance the box into action. This quickly turned sour as the elevator consistently missed the floor by a good four inches. It finally became too much when it just plain stopped and made ominous creaking noises. It was lovely then to learn the emergency bell button did nothing of the kind.

And so we come to the pièce de resistance: the room. It was disgusting. The blankets were slimy to the touch and obviously hadn’t been cleaned in years. There were holes in the floor that were barely covered by the carpet.

True delights awaited in the bathroom with a badly cracked sink which also featured an extra hole.

And, saving the best for last, the mildew in the shower:

I wasn’t planning on doing any hotel reviews until our trip was over, but folks planning a trip to Cairo should definitely be aware of the state of some hotels. The government of Egypt has an official star rating system which gave this place an incomprehensible four out of five stars! So…don’t even think of staying at the Hotel Kaoud also called the Hotel Delta Pyramids and the Hotel Kaoud Delta. in Giza on King Faisal Road. Just don’t.

Tomorrow has got to be a better day.

What lovelier way to begin our last day in Istanbul than to see a chicken?

TWO STICKS IN THE GROUND

Istanbul, of course, used to be Constantinople. On the left we have the column Constantine used to mark the founding of the new city. On the right, it’s what remains of the triumphal arch from which all distances in Byzantium were measured.

MUSEUM OF TURKISH AND ISLAMIC ART

Whirling our way through our last sights, we stopped at this museum with its fabulous collections. The top picture is an inlay box. The second row shows calligraphy. The picture on the right is actually a deed to a piece of land. Click on it for a closer look. The last row is from the very important rug collection. One of the designs struck me as reminiscent of Austrian Jugendstil.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS

The area known as Sultanahmet, now full of hotels and tourist shops was a ratty area not too long ago. The prison in the movie Midnight Express was on the site of what is now a very posh Four Seasons Hotel

THE BASILCA CISTERN

Built in the 6th century and used to store water from a forest 10 miles away, this cistern is wonderfully spooky. There are two famous Medusa heads at the foot of two columns. When Medusas were used in decoration, they typically had to be upside-down or sideways to protect people gazing them from turning into stone. Finally, there’s the Column of Tears.

OUR FINAL MEAL

Going for a sure thing, we went back to our two favorite restaurants under the parking garage. At Namli Gurme, we had, among other things, delicious stuffed mussels and a green from the south that I’m pretty sure is a kind of saltwort.

And could there possibly be any way to end our visit than one final plate of Güllöglu’s phenomenal baklava?

Istanbul was the terminus of the Orient Express, of Agatha Christie fame. The final station was here. Inside were an old car, a piece of the dining car, the old uniform and a wild picture of a train crash. I wonder if the engineers were texting when it happened.

We were foiled in our attempt to visit the city’s main mosque because it’s undergoing a long, throrough restoration, so I happily settled for a delicious halka tatlisi, a crunchy honey-soaked pastry sort of reminiscent of a churro.

Moving back down the hill, we made another pass through the Spice Market. The piles of everything was mind-boggling. We were there so I could pick up some saffron. From left to right, Iranian saffron, medium-grade Turkish saffron, and highest grade Turkish saffron. It was hard for me to compare them without using them in cooking, so we shall see. (Of course I had to spring for the highest grade.)

Leaving the Spice Market, we chanced onto the plant market, where I picked up some seeds  for pumpkins (in Turkey you eat only the seeds and throw the rest away) and a black carrot. There also jars of leeches for medicinal use.

A couple more random things from the day:

A very beautiful mosque above some very busy bazaar streets is the Rusem Pasa (16th century). Inside they allowed women onto the mosque floor, albeit behind a screen so they wouldn’t cause a ruckus. (I’m kidding, but they’re serious.)

Our must-do visit to see how the fried pies are today. We had an apple and a blackberry custard pie. Speaking of chain food, who sees El Torito in Europe???

Dinner featured more pita blimps and a wonderful red mousaka, without the usual white sauce.

DERVISHES

The highlight of day was seeing a touristic performance of Whirling Dervishes. A Sufi sect following the mystic poet Rumi, the members of the Mevlana were outlawed in Attaturk’s secularization of the country. Technically, they still are to this day, but sometime in 1950s, the government realized their tourist appeal. The whirling is a meditative, ecstatic way to connect with god. Tom does a very good imitation, if you ask him someday, he might just do it.

The day ended, as it should with you-know-what:

One of the nice things about staying in one place for a while (we’re here for 10 days) is that it’s possible to relax and not feel the pressure of being sure to see the “big” sights. So we had a lovely visit at the Little Ayasofia which dates back to the 6th century (a reference to the big Hagia Sofia we saw last week and built around the same time). Until recently, it was on UNESCO’s list of endangered world heritage sights. It’s obvious that a lot of care went into the restoration. The left the old stuff in place which makes for an interesting comparison to the new stuff. This is one of the many repeated decorations in the church, now a mosque. Its placement can be seen in the center of the next picture between the lower row of windows.

While we were there we were two of the only three people inside. This man was praying quietly…his singing was beautiful.

Staying in the same time period, we visited the Great Palace Mosaic in the Mosaic Museum. It was discovered in recent times during excavations nearby. The original mosaic is estimated to have contained 80 million tiles portrayed a wide variety of everyday, historic and mythological subjects. Very impressive.

THE SHOESHINE SCAM

These beautiful shoe shine setups are common and the array of colored creams the pros have to mix and apply to any pair of shoes is very impressive. However, the drive-by shoe shine is also alive and well on the streets of Istanbul. A bunch of kids carry much simpler kits which they use to separate the tourist from his money in a little scam. You’re walking along and the kid passes you going the other way. Just as he does you notice a brush fall. You grab it and yell after the kid who comes back and thanks you profusely. He offers a free shine, but then presumably asks for payment later. We say presumably because we never wanted our shoes done. After the second time this happened, we caught on and waited to see what would happen. As expected the next kid dropped his brush (on purpose), but we kept on walking, ignoring the brush on the pavement. Turning back to see, we saw the kid rushing back to get his brush. The scene got repeated lots of times during the day. A harmless ruse really, and it was fun to watch it happen to someone else.

BALIK EKMEK

We went back to the waterside for another balik ekmek, or fish sandwich. Apparently the fish is bonito which is very often caught from the Galata Bridge, just a few hundred feet away. I forget if I’ve already said this, but the fish is grilled on the rocking boats, slapped on a roll with a bunch of onions and lettuce and served to you for just a couple of bucks. It’s up to you to season it with lemon juice and salt. Really a great sandwich. I had mine with a can of sour cherry juice, which is now my favorite drink in the world. .

ON THE BOSPHORUS

We’d been bamboozled by the gray, often wet weather in Istanbul which prevented us from going for a boat ride on the Bosphorus. Today was the day and there was lot to see. Houses lucky enough to have fantastic views and one of Istanbul’s old protective walls, looking very much like the Great Wall we saw in China.

Just behind the old wall, you can catch a glimpse of the Bosphorus Bridge, a white ribbon connecting the European and Asian sides of Istanbul. A single-span bridge, it looks an awful like one we have at home. Unlike ours, this one looks very delicate, too delicate to survive an earthquake. And strong earthquakes do happen in Turkey.

There are two funiculars that run underground and connect the waterside to the city’s heart, Taksim Square. Looking very modern, these are the latest cars in use on lines that have been around for a hundred years (one of them is among the three oldest metro lines in the world). Once up there, we walked the very grand shopping boulevard, Istikal Caddei, which has a cute little nostalgic streetcar.

For dinner, we had something called Bhuara Özel kebaps, a specialty of the restaurant, which was a tasty mixed grill of meats. First, though, was a balloon of freshly baked pita

And of course the day ended with a plate of my favorite dish:

Returning from Cappadocia, we returned to the same hotel, but on the other side of the building facing the Sea of Marmara, with the Mediterranean beyond.

Immediately we noticed a change in the sound of the regular calls to prayer. Before we were almost directly under on the Blue Mosque’s minarets so we got blasted 5 times a day. The 5.30am-ish call would invariably set off a round of giggles. Here on the other side of the building, that single mosque’s call blended in many others around Istanbul. It was a beautiful sound.

This morning it was actually warm enough to walk around without a jacket. Taking advantage of the good weather, we crossed the Golden Horn to visit Dolambahçe Palace, which had an impossibly tall guard at the gate. (Yes, that’s a real person.)

Built in the waning days of the Ottoman empire, Dolambahçe replaced Topkapi Palace as the center of things. It is unbelievably sumptuous. Deliberately taking its inspiration from European royalty, this palace was clearly intended to impress the rest of a world on which Turkey was increasingly dependent. Having seeing many of the great castles of Europe, we thought this one outshines them all. Every room sparkles with crystal from Baccarat or Murano or London, there are beautiful frescoes, crystal banisters on the stairs, the world’s largest chandelier and I couldn’t take a single picture of any of it. Oh well, here are a few cribbed from Wikipedia.

Noticing all the European portraits of sultans, Tom asked the guide what the deal was since doesn’t Islamic law say that you can’t have a picture of a person? She smiled slyly and answered saying that strictly speaking, portraiture is forbidden in Islam, however as really good painters started showing up in the Ottoman Empire, people began to look the other way. Now the walls of the palace are filled with paintings, most with faces in them.

The palace grounds have lovely gardens (Dolambahçe means ‘filled gardens’) and also an aviary, supposedly the largest in Europe. We saw a peacock and his pea hens as well as some lovely chickens who were very curious and crowded around my camera looking for scratch.

Taking advantage of the fact we were already in Karaköy, we visited our gourmet alley underneath a parking garage.

Namli Gurme is a famous deli. Like one of our salad bar restaurants, you point at what you want, say when its enough, they weigh the plate and then you eat. Unlike a salad bar, this food is extraordinary.

On our plate today: a spicy couscous, fried cheese sticks, a fiery stuffed pepper and some roasted peppers with walnuts. Absolutely delicious. We’ll have to come back here before we leave.

Right next door was our first temple of orgasmic Turkish baklava, Güllöglu. Really old-fashioned inside and looking vaguely Austro-Hungarian, you tell the cashier first what it is you want, then take the receipt to the pastry counter where the guy pulls your pastries from the trays with his spatula swiftly and gracefully. No matter what you choose from that day’s selection, it is guaranteed to be delicious.

This day I spied a kindly old gentlemen sitting by the registers observing the goings on. Realizing it was old Mr. Güllü, I asked for a picture. Just as good as one with a movie star.

With all my blathering on about baklava, you might wonder about Turkish Delight. We tried it and it’s fine, just too sweet for us. Besides the kind that looks like our Cotlets (anyone remember the Nut Tree?), it comes in other, very pretty shapes. I was very impressed with a rose-infused version that seem to catch the essence of a rose’s perfume.

One final thing for today: the square between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque is a free wireless zone. Talk about old and new!

Any visitor to Turkey will recognize these evil eyes, which show up everywhere to ward off wickedness and bad luck. More on this later.

The day started with a morning hike through the Rose Valley, full of what you call “rugged beauty.”

Apricot trees, large and small are coming into bloom.

There are more churches to visit in this odd locale.

There’s a feeling that early Christians felt safer here, even boldly carving a cross into the valley walls.

There’s even a pretty large church to be found in yet another cave.

Still, they were discovered. Here we saw evidence of Theodosian invaders who erased the faces of the Christ and the saints.

Here’s the smelliest animal we’ve ever been near: an aged camel. I think he somehow sensed this and chose to ignore the fact with considerable dignity.

Moving even further back in time we visited the little town of Kavusin, which was pretty much destroyed in a 1960 earthquake. Perhaps its most famous resident was John the Baptist who lived here for a time, still with his head.

Underneath the Turkish flag is the main entrance to one of Cappadocia’s 36 underground cities. Presently four floors are open, and at least 4 and possibly 12 more floors remain to be cleaned and explored. (It was only rediscovered 50 years ago.) It was occupied as early as 1750 BC by Hittites who worshipped the goddess Diana (Artemis). It was used by successive cave dwellers as a safe place to withdraw to in case of attack, including Christians from the 5th to 9th centuries A.D. There are one-ton slotted rolling doors that seal off each level and space for 5,000 people. The air ventilation system is awesome, providing fresh air in all the areas we saw. It would have to be considering the number of people with their oil lamps and cooking fires. We saw a passageway that provided a 9km escape route to the next underground city. The inhabitants could put in supplies and water to last for 2 months.

One has to wonder at the engineering achievement here. Support columns were constructed that support the caves to this day. The ventilation shaft which is at least 50 meters deep and could provide fresh air. Those ginormous doors. I can’t imagine how they could have managed to build this, so it’s entertaining to learn that there have been 1600 modern sightings of UFOs in Cappadocia. Could little green men have been the original cave dwellers?

Remember those evil eyes? On the edge of a cliff we saw tree of them next to a little shop. Guess who…

And of course, we had our daily baklava:

Two days here in Cappadocia, we could have easily spent a week here exploring the area, going for hikes and just hanging out. Much more laid back than bustling Istanbul, it’s a great place to relax. Maybe on a future trip.

Moonscape, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, the Flinstones. These all come to mind in this mind-blowing region in Central Turkey. Successive layers of basalt, iron, copper, sulfur and much softer tufa were laid down by cataclysmic volcanic eruptions millions of years ago. Erosion took its natural course and left behind some spectacular geography, some of which looks deliberately carved.

Quite literally in a time out of memory, people discovered that the caves could be carved and chiseled further into living spaces relatively easily and that’s just what they did.

Those nooks etched into rock surface are pigeon holes. Local people actually harvested  pigeon poop to use as fertilizer. Gives you an idea of how difficult life must have been.

Early Christians, escaping the Romans, came here. In the groups of three fairy chimneys together they saw the Holy Trinity and set up camp here. There are thousands of churches in this area which once had a population of 200,000.

Climbing into these caves we saw amazing spaces. Dating back to the earliest days of the religion, these are small churches with four apses in a cruciform space. The earliest paintings conceal the religion from prying eyes with hidden meanings depicted in ciphers and allegory. The Maltese Cross, for example, spells out Jesus’ name in Greek with the letters stacked on top of one another. The triangles represent the Holy Trinity.

Towards the 9th & 10th centuries, very skilled artists came in to paint frescoes, meant to educate the illiterate followers.

Some churches were well-protected from invaders and the elements and the frescoes are pristine.

Keeping with the cave theme, our hotel room is a cave, carved into the hillside. Really, we were sleeping in a cave!

It was lovely, extremely comfortable, romantic, and had a great view.

Dinner was a funny dish called pottery kebaps. A stew of meat and vegetables is cooked in a sealed amphora and served by dramatically cracking the pottery open. Of course we had our now ritual plate of baklava:

Tucking ourselves in at night with a fire going, it seemed those old cave inhabitants had a good idea.

While Istanbul has hundreds of mosques built by the Sultanate over time, there are only a couple of royal palaces. Topkapi Palace was the Ottoman’s home until the mid-19th century. It looks familiar from all sorts of paintings since the Turkish court was a favorite subject.

It’s one important-looking building after another and actually a little dull. There were some nice things like some more tile and doors made of inlaid mother of pearl and tortoise shell.

There’s even a whole building used for circumcisions of the royal princes.

It all got a lot more interesting when we visited the royal treasury rooms, where everything seem to be gilt and gem-encrusted. The Spoonmaker’s Diamond, whose story has something to do with a poor man who found the 82-carat diamond being gypped in the trade of 3 wooden spoons was astonishing. The Topkapi Dagger, emeralds and all was made famous in the old Peter Ustinov-Melina Mercouri movie. (not my pictures below)

There was also a wide-ranging collection of religious artifacts, including bits and pieces of Muhammed and Moses’ rod.

The harem was a completely different sort of thing, quiet, mysterious and intimate. The Sultan’s wives, concubines and sons lived here, and gruesome things happened like the everyday objectification and repression of women to the horrific, despicable sultan who, having tired of his 382 wives, had them packed up in bags and thrown into the Bosphorus to drown. Even the grandest space was filled with a sense of story.

Quite unexpected was the chance to see the Sultan’s Toilet.

THE GRAND BAZAAR

The largest covered market in the world with its rabbit warren of stalls and caravansaries, we found a few things we might buy, but the whole place was a little obnoxious with the aggressive salesmanship. Every once in a while though, we’d run into someone who made their obligatory pitch, but then were very happy to just chat about this, that and the other thing for a few minutes.

MEATBALLS

Istanbul people are supposed to be fond of meatball patties called köfte.  Traditionally served with a white bean salad picked peppers, they were tasty. At the local restaurant we tried, there was nothing on the menu besides the köfte.

It was a grey, rainy, miserable morning so we thought we’d be clever and ride a tourist bus around town. Wrong. It was almost unbearably boring.

We thought we had something promising when we went to a seaside restaurant with nice fresh displays outside. The bread with a spicy tapenade in olive oil was pretty good, but the meal went quickly downhill. So a month into our trip, we have finally had a bad meal. In retrospect, we should have paid more attention to the fact it kind of looked like Fisherman’s Wharf at home.

THE BLUE MOSQUE

We’re staying in the old part of Istanbul, called Sultanahmet. Sultan Ahmed, tired of worshipping in Hagia Sophia which was, after all, a Christian church, decided to build a new one of his own. Officially named after him, its popularly known as the Blue Mosque because of the blue iznik tiles that cover so much of the interior surface.

Like the church across the way, it also has a large dome, surrounded by myriad half domes and little domes.

I noticed an office in the mosque offering information about Islam, so I went inside and had a nice half-hour chat and learning a tiny bit more about this religion. (It was a little sad that while we there, among the hundreds of gawking tourists, none had gone into this office, nor had more than a handful made a donation to the mosque’s upkeep.) One funny slam against us males: the reason women have to stay behind screens out of sight in the mosque isn’t because they’re inferior in any way. It’s just they’re too much of a distraction to the men folk.

DINNER

We had a fun, fun dinner at a göreme restaurant. Istanbul is full of aggressive touts, for trinkets, rugs and restaurants. It can all get kind of annoying, but the guy who ushered us in here was so charming, ebullient and nice, we couldn’t not go in for a try. Göreme are described as a pancake, but instead of batter, a little lump of dough is rolled out. I guess more like a tortilla. They’re then filled and cooked on a flat grill. Simple but completely delicious. Looking back, it’s a Turkish quesadilla.

Another reason we came in is because they had a a fiddler, lute, zither and drum that looked like they were having a lot of fun. When the fiddler found out I also try to play the violin, he just had to show off his bag of impressive tricks.

Rounding out the meal were a couple of meat dishes, some kebaps, and one called Sac Tava. That was a big meat patty of ground lamb on a bed of eggplant puree along with some peppers. The kebaps were swimming in an addictive pool of paprika-laden oil.

Having decided to eat baklava or some kind of Turkish pastry every single day we’re here, we ate today’s delicious plate: the familiar triangle of a buttery pile of phyllo, a ring of walnut and a roll of pistachio.

Just out of the picture in the upper left corner is a glass of Turkish tea, which is really nothing more than your basic Lipton tea bag, but everyone drinks it all the time so we do too. Sometimes, you’ll even see a tea delivery guy.

As if we hadn’t upped our risk of diabetes already, I had to try something called sahlep from a pushcart vendor.

A sweet, milky drink redolent of cinammon, sahlep is made by adding liquid to sahlep flour, which is, get ready for this: ground orchid tubers. Yes, it was good and the perfect thing for a cold evening.

So, for a day that had started out so dismally, we actually had some fun.

There must be something about coming from a very high elevation all the way down to sea level, because we woke up after a good night’s sleep still feeling a little logy. Regardless, food must be eaten and sights must be seen, so off we went. But first, a little maintenance…

Massive monuments were on the agenda so, to ease into things, we stopped first at the graceful mausoleum of Sultan Selim II, built by Sinan, perhaps the greatest single architect who ever lived, in the late 16th century. Sinan’s buildings dominate the Istanbul scenery from the Suleymaniye Mosque to the turkish bath we’d visit later in the day. Hundreds of buildings proudly announce that they were done by the architect.

Inside we were introduced to Iznik tiles, originally an imitation of Chinese porcelain which grew into a major art form of their own. Instead of clay, the tiles have a very high quartz content. It’s amazing that they display the same brilliant colors so many years later.

We moved out of the shadows of the hulking Hagia Sophia, once a church, then a mosque, and now a museum. At first, it looked to me nothing so much as a 19th century factory.

Inside was a feast of Byzantine mosaics.

Normally I run or yawn through museum galleries of Byzantine art, but here, in situ, they invite close inspection and enjoyment. The church, which was built in the early 6th century, gives the mosaics context. It was for a thousand years it was the largest church.

Moving down in scale, we found a lovely pastry shop in the neighborhood we’ll be visiting again I’m sure. Consumed were a napoleon and a slice of Sultan’s cake, the cake being much more honey than cake, with a cream filling. Yum.

Rounding out the day was a visit to a famous Turkish bath, Çemberlita? Hamam?, built by that architect Sinan and in continuous operation for over 400 years.

A new experience, for sure. Going in, there’s something like a huge living room, where people read the paper, drink tea and just generally hang out. To start your bath, an attendant leads you to a resting room where you can change into a towel. Going into the hamam itself, you see a huge dome with round windows hovering over a huge marble dais, well-heated. Lowering onto it, I felt like a plate of fajitas. After a little while it was exquisite. Not a sauna, and definitely not a steam room, it is different. After your body temperature has risen, an attendant comes by to give you a good scrub with a rough washcloth and plenty of olive oil soap. It was weird to be bathed by a complete stranger, but I guess that’s how it’s done. After that, some more baking on the marble, relieved by visits to the ring of water tubs where cold water can be poured. After a while, into the shower you go and back to the resting room to recover from your experience. Of course, I couldn’t take any photos, but here’s a few from their website: