Istanbul

After a long day along the north shore of the sea of Marmara we pulled in to the coast on the outskirts of Istanbul a couple of hours after dark; the shore line for as far as the eye could see put on quite a light show!

It has been pretty cold and wet, its not all sunshine and roses out here; I haven't had this much clothing on since leaving the Atlantic!

Still, although the last few miles into Istanbul were also wet, things were getting better. 

As we approached Istanbul we sailed through the largest ship park I have ever seen! 

The black triangles shown on my chart plotter  are all ships at anchor, we are the boat shaped icon in the middle.                                                                                                                                           When we reached the city itself we crossed the shipping lane and dropped anchor just off the Asian shore.

Istanbul lies at the southern end of the Bosphorus, the 15 mile long, one mile wide natural channel created by the gap between the European and Asian tectonic plates. At the other end is the black sea. The city is split in two by Golden Horn is an estuary off the sea of Marmara, so called because it resemble a bulls horn, the Golden bit being the city of Istanbul.

Istanbul doesn't have an underground, it has ferries, hundreds of them, all beetling about all over the Bosphorus like busy ants; how they don't crash into each other as the vie for space at the myriad  landing jetties whilst battling the 3-4 knot current goodness only knows! We took our chances and, after bumbling our way through the process of finding out which ferry we wanted and buying a ticket, jumped on a ferry to the 'the big city'. No-one speaks english round here!

The city has only been officially called Istanbul since the new republic started in 1923 but the name has been around for centuries and was used interchangeably with the name Constantinople. The city was originally called Constantinople (city of Constantine) by the Roman Emperor Constantine; the name Istanbul is derived from the Greek  word meaning 'into the city' and was used by the locals as a name for the centre, it was adopted by the new republic as a symbol of the new era.

The city's position as a major gateway on the silk road makes its history unique and many empires have ruled her; Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman being the principal ones. If only it could talk!

There is a very Asian feel. Bustling bazaars teeming with little stalls piled high with spices, lanterns, Turkish delight and carpets. Yes we were offered a magic carpet; I explained we didn't need one as our little bikes now have batteries!

There are several big sights in the city, all close together in the heart of the old centre. Quite astounding was Hagia Sophia. It looks very mosque like, complete with its 4 minarets but was built in the days when the city was Christian and incredibly has been  allowed to stay that way. 

Like all mosques it is one big room inside, wonderfully light because of the many high windows and open space. What made this building quite so special for me was that it was built 1600 years ago, 500 years before Europeans even started learning how to build their cathedrals! These people may have fallen on hard times in the last century but there is nothing backward about a race who could make a building with a 33 meter diameter dome when most of Europe was still a bunch of warring tribes!

Sadly the Blue mosque, so called because of the thousands of pale blue tiles lining its walls, was largely out of sight behind huge restoration scaffolding.

We felt a Turkish massage was obligatory but beware, there is nothing soothing about one! First steamed in a sauna to soften the skin, then scrubbed with a rough glove that felt like 60 grit sand paper and finally being covered in a blanket of bubbles that acted as a lubricant for a pretty fierce massage. I must say we did feel good afterwards!

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The next must was a Turkish coffee. Brewed over a charcoal stove, the contents of this pot are then poured into a little  cup. 

After half a dozen sips of the strong gritty fluid a heavy sludge appears in the bottom half of the cup; well, you don't have to do it twice! Note the little glass of water to wash the grit away and turkish delight to remove the taste!

Having come this far we had to see  the Black Sea. We hopped on our bikes and pedalled the 20 miles along the bank of the Bosphorus. The road was narrow and the traffic hideous; rather than take our lives in our hands on the narrow road we cycled most of the way on some very bumpy pavement! We got to the end alive to be greeted by...... well, a sea. The Black Sea looks very like any other sea!

We had a fun ferry trip back.

We are now heading back out of the Sea of Marmara along the southern shore.