Entre Les Murs

Not Constantinople

Entre les murs has been outside the walls for a while, as I was able to tag along with Janet to Istanbul.  She was making presentations at a couple of conferences, and my job was to make sure it wasn't all business.  We did a little exploring South of our hotel in Beyoğlu on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday we went to Sultanahmet to see the Hağia Sophia, the Blue mosque and so forth.  We tried to visit the Grand Bazaar (probably the world's oldest shopping mall), but discovered that Ataturk's westernization has been even more successful than I'd realized and we found that it is closed on Sundays.  But we certainly got the flavour of the city.  For all the tourist sites - and we did occasionally trip over small groups of accountants in town for the conference - it's a lot more of a living city than a museum even in the oldest parts.


Monday was miserable and wet, so we spent it mostly in a modern shopping mall.  Tuesday was beautiful, but all business for Janet.  I went for a long walk, from our hotel, across the Galata bridge, through the Grand Bazaar, and over to the Valens aqueduct.  The latter is quite a site; I was heading for the Cartoon Museum which I never found, but the old Roman aqueduct was worth the trip anyway.


We flew home on Wednesday, but before we did we had time to take in the view from the Galata Tower, and see the Istanbul Modern art gallery.  The Istanbul Modern had been recommended to us, and I can see why the locals are proud of it.  It displays Turkish abstract and impressionist artists as on par with the best of the rest of Europe.  I can't see that they are doing anything very original, but that may be my cultural bias.

posted 17.11.06