November 24. Covering the further reaches of Istanbul

View from Galata Tower

Today we walked to Chora church famous for its frescoes and mosaics. It was a very nice walk. We passed by the waterfront area of Beyoglu and saw the fish market.

How many animals do you see

It is customary to pull out fish's gills to show how fresh and red they are. As we crossed the bridge we saw the perpetual fishermen. What a comforting sight. After we reached the aqueduct the rain caught us and we stopped for tea at a mini city center with butcher store and many little restaurants.

Next we walked though somewhat more religious area. Most men wore some headgear and most women were closed up with only eyes and nose visible. They even had extra long sleeves to make sure that their arms would be covered completely.

Dan navigated the narrow streets with barely a street sign and we finally arrived. Incidentally there is a beautiful artist shop nearby. There were pretty watercolors. Then we saw a conveyor belt of many young women copying those artworks to produce more of them. They are still artistic but no so much.

Chora church is pretty small. It was probably too small to warrant full conversion and accompanying visual modifications. Surviving frescos and mosaics are indeed interesting. The faces look like people in you may see on the streets. They were good to capturing the three dimensions but not too much on perspective yet.

Next we tried to get the cab nearly to take us to the other side of Bosphorus to continue our hunt. The driver said 40 lira, we said OK as long as the meter is turned on. So he refused. In a few minutes we hailed the cab near the super long city wall a few blocks away. It cost 16 lira.

The hunt did not yield anything but we walked around Nisantasi, the designer garment district. There.were some stores with interesting outerwear but by an large it was not very interesting. The stuff looked it like would look at home in some provincial towns.

We grabbed lunch at one of many restaurants lining the main street to Taxim square. It was a nice place but from the sanitary perspective probably would score the bottom of the inspection range, like many other places we've seen here (most fruits are not washed at the fruit stand, and if the fruit is dropped you can be sure it will be served to the next customer). But the miracle power of Coke has been protecting us so far. The food was better than before but still no match to Georgian and Turkish served in US restaurants. Pretty bland and characterless.

Climate Change Art in the Funicular

Next we walked around Dolma palace area near the water and fed seagulls. It is a beautiful area but all the large hotels block access to the waterfront so it was a bit of a walk. After that we took funicular to Taxim and hopped back to our hotel room for a quick break.

Later in the day it started to rain pretty heavily. We went to Pera museum to check out the excellent collection called the Golden Children featuring royal children around Europe. It was very interesting. It takes a while to do a good painting, so I imagine it may explain some of the torturous expressions, pale faces, red eyes, and such. I did not know that in many countries boys younger than 7 were dressed in dresses, with bonnets and lace aprons. Future king Louis 14th in a dress looked very interesting. There was also excellent exhibition of weights and scales provided by a family of collectors.

We walked around Istiklal again but the rain would not relent and so we went back to the hotel to wait for our dinner with Mark and his friends. Incidentally as lively as it is, I wish they had less Mavis stores and more diverse shops of the street. It is almost 100% clothing, shoes, and food stores. What's really interesting is the quantity of Starbucks in this homeland of Turkish coffee. And there is a line in every one. Istiklal alone has probably 5 stores.

In the evening we met with Mark and his friends. It was very relaxing. Restaurant was slightly lower on the taste scale than the one we went to for lunch but it was the company that mattered. After dinner we let them continue their evening of fun and walked Istiklal for 100th time. We are getting some memories back of being here 12 years ago as the part of our Renaissance cruise. Maybe it was. Maybe it was a false memory based on the extensive repeat walking. If anything Istiklal could have been less happening back then.

Back home tomorrow!!!