When I think of Istanbul, I imagine an elephant: big, old wise and wrinkled. This city, as old as the hills, has seen empires rise and fall, and has played host to emperors, caliphs, warriors and merchants for thousands of years. Each one of them has left his mark here. Istanbul is so heterogeneous and profound, it feels impossible to grasp. In the week that we spent here we barely touched the surface. Even after having lived in Jerusalem for years, I can say that I’ve never been in a city that has such diverse history still alive and pumping through its veins.

Istanbul, which resides on both sides of the Bosphorus straits, brings Europe and Asia together, living in constant conflict and perpetual harmony. It is both and neither, an impossible mix that works nevertheless. It is a city in which you sit in an outdoor cafe sipping beer and marveling at the sunset over the Golden Horn, while dozens of muezzins are calling to prayer from the minarets that surround you from all directions. It is a city in which you shop in a thousand-year old market together with niqab-clad women and bearded men wearing skullcaps, and minutes later you’re in a street with a thousand Turkish students, crowding countless bars and clubs in one of the liveliest nightlife scenes I’ve encountered anywhere. It is really impossible to contain.

We started exploring the main attractions as per the guidebook, beginning with Aya Sofya, a.k.a. Hagia Sophia. This pearl of architecture had been the world’s largest church for 900 years and then a mosque for another 500. Ataturk, the secular founder of the modern Turkish republic, converted it into museum.

We spent some time exploring the old neighborhoods of Istanbul. It is possible to see there a little bit of Istanbul the way it once was. Workshops tucked away in basements, street vendors selling every possible thing, mothers buying products for their families, and men on the street passing time conversing, smoking nargileh and of course drinking chai — the ubiquitous small glasses of strong Turkish tea.

We had a wonderful CouchSurfing host, Mehmet. He had visited Israel not a long time ago and wrote me, asking for hosting, but unfortunately we couldn’t host him at that time. He agreed to host us in Istanbul and turned out to be the most cheerful fellow, with a generous soul. We spent our first evening in Istanbul with him in a cafe overlooking the Bosphorus, sitting at our table in Europe and looking at Asia, watching the giant tankers and container ships passing slowly and quietly from the Black Sea into the Marmara. The strait is a very busy passage and commercial ships are not allowed to stop on the way; two navy ships were anchored in it, and Mehmet joked that they were there to watch us, probably the only Israelis currently in Turkey, since it’s very rare even for the armed forces to park any vessels in the strait.

All in all, Istanbul is a very cosmopolitan city, and never during our stay did we feel any danger whatsoever, during any time of the day or night. At first we were cautious about disclosing our nationality; the vendors at the markets assumed for some reason that we were Spanish, and I was only too happy to play along. However, with time it became clear that despite the political animosity, there’s no antagonism whatsoever on the personal level towards Israelis in Istanbul.

There are many mosques in Istanbul, and we had the fortune to visit one of the most exquisite of them during a prayer service. The Suleymaniye mosque, built by Suleyman the Magnificent 500 years ago, is similar to Aya Sofya in its design, however due to fire damages it suffered multiple times in history, it had to be restored relatively recently, so it looks very new. This was our first time at an Islamic service and it was quite an experience. Listening to “Allahu Akbar” calls in our home country is difficult. It is very different, though, when traveling.

The Topkapi palace, the seat of Ottoman sultans through the history of that empire, contains an impressive museum that displays the riches of the Ottoman empire, such as the sultans’ own clothes and jewelry collections, as well as various sacred items such as pieces of the beard of Prophet Muhammad, and even the sword of King David and the walking stick of Prophet Moses! To be frank, I have a somewhat hard time believing the authenticity of the latter two items. But maybe I’m just overly skeptic. Either way, the harem of the palace, which requires a special ticket to get into, is the most beautiful part of it. As it happens, the mother of the sultan was the one who was running the harem for her son, and beyond that she had major influence on matters of state; since the heir was selected by the sultan and not automatically assumed to be the first-born son, the sultan’s concubines (who were all foreign, as it was illegal to enslave one’s own people) were in fierce competition over whose son would get to be the heir, because that would award his mother the coveted position of the Sultan Mother.

Mehmet took us to places which we most probably would never have visited otherwise. Istanbul is full of tea houses where people go after (or instead of?) work to drink tea and smoke nargileh. These are busy, noisy places, which nevertheless offer a great opportunity to rest.

In the late afternoon we took a ferry through the Bosphorus, and in the evening went to the Beyoglu neighborhood, the nightlife district of Istanbul.

There is an unbelievable, disproportional, almost ridiculous amount of places that offer food in Istanbul. It is impossible to understand who eats all that food. There’s street food, such as fish fillet sandwiches (very good!), chestnuts, pickles, and sweets; there are fast food stalls with doner kebab every dozen meters; restaurants literally on every corner; supermarkets and delicatessen shops; baklava bakeries. Not to mention the markets. Where does it all go?

We first intended to stay for four days in Istanbul; after that time ran out we decided to stay for another day, then for another. This city exceeded our wildest expectations. We left Istanbul eager to discover all the great places that surely lie ahead, at the same time realizing that we will most probably not pass through another place so overwhelmingly amazing on this trip. Istanbul is definitely worth another visit.

April 11, 2011