Typical tourist waiting in reception for the tour to commence. This is made up of two half day tours with the morning being a tour up the Bosporus stopping half way and a mini bus back to town.
It’s Sunday and everywhere is packed. Even the short walk around the new mosque with its disgusting pigeons seems tedious. It’s just to kill the time until the ferry departs at 10.30. Our guide Attila, no not the Hun some of you will get that, explains the pigeon story, something to do with life and circumcision. There’s a good chance that no one is listening.
The ferry is the standard operating ferry, which is crammed more with tourists than locals. All the seats are taken by big fat Europeans, primarily German, as well as Americans. They probably left their towels on the seats overnight!
I have single-handedly almost managed to spark World War III by standing at the rails between the seats. This infuriates some who ask me to leave so they can see the views. Well I will leave when I am ready and eventually do when most of Istanbul is in the rear view mirror. Our guide attempts to explain most parts of the terrain to the European and Asian shores. On the Asian shore the houses come right down to the edge with their own moorings. These places are so sumptuous and must command a very high price.
There must be 500 plus people on this ferry and I reckon you’d be lucky if there were 300 life support devices, but what the heck.
After a quick stop at Kadikoy where a good chunk departs we are in the middle of the Bosporus now and it’s only a short hop to Yecikoy where we will rejoin the mini bus. Haven’t really paid much attention to the fellow guests but they all come out of the Inter and the President.
The two Russian arms dealers speak no English so hard looking and would want them on my side, while the “Australian” family who have a South African accent are all a little delicate – Dad, wife and his two very attractive late teenage daughters, all following along. One is as close to petulant, always on the phone, sitting in the corner and not joining in. The Indian couple, he the Arthur Daly, or rather Arthur Delhi, has all sorts of business interests in Italian coffee machines, pharmaceuticals and heating products, which are for his wife running a beauty school – must need most of the treatment. They semi-reside between Delhi and Dubai. Bet he’s greased some palms to get his exports sorted.
I represent an arms cartel for this trip as I can’t be bothered with the niceties so they are left more dumbfounded than anything when I tell them. Obviously I can’t talk about some of the deals that are taking place with the Turks and Georgia!!!!
The traffic is horrendous back along the coast road. It’s Sunday, sunrise and not too hot, perfect weather for all those people in Istanbul to get behind the wheel and take the car out. There is a 10% ownership of cars in the Istanbul population and seeing there are 16 million people that’s a load of cars, varying from between ….Japanese cars to state of the art Porsche Cayenne. They fill the roads and the bloody pavement, which means people are walking in the road to get by these parked cars. My brother would have a hoot.
The fortress of Europe is the next stop. This is where Mehmet II built his castle prior to his invasion of Constantinople, and it’s at the narrowest part of the sea, yes it’s not a river as it’s non-tidal, it faces the Asian fortress.
Although a memorable view nothing spectacular except security, who take bottles of water off people and anything that looks like a 5” amateur tripod. Weird, still can’t work out what was going on but we all comply.
Eventually the mini bus gets back to the hotel and I change guides for my afternoon lunch and then off to the Dolmabahge Palace, lets pronounce that Dolma.batch.a. Think that sounds right.
Rule number one is no personal guides, rule number two no flash photography, rule number three, do not touch anything and the last rule – stay on the carpet.
The tour I am on is the English Selamlik which takes in all the areas of the palace that the Sultan and his entourage had access to, but not the harem.
The tour ahead is all Turkish speaking and it takes about 20 minutes to get them off before we commence – there must be 50 of us across many different stables, but only English is spoken so the Germans, Italians, French and Spanish have to join in.
From the ornate gardens with the Swan fountain you enter by the main doors through a reception hall to the staircase “Stay on the carpet” “don’t’ touch”, “no flash photography”. We are followed by a civilian dressed policeman, who kindly reminds people as we go snaking round.
Although the guidebooks talk in detail about the palace they fail to emphasise the sheer opulence. The wait, the queues were all worth it to see the Ambassador’s reception room with exactly the same furniture that was in place in 1920 – it’s quite remarkable. The carpets are original, clearly not the ones we are walking on. These are to protect the parquet flooring which must be getting damaged by the sheer number of people filing through.
The halls lead through to smaller ornate rooms until we see the room where the Sultan met other country ambassadors in private. This room is just all red, gold and mirrors from the beautiful fresco ceilings to the tables and chairs.
The last point of the trip was the great hall with its balconies for Heads of State, throne for the Sultan, areas for the orchestra and lastly the high windows with their decorative grills where the harem could look through.
Everyone has to visit this beautiful palace at some point on a trip to Istanbul.
The gardens leading down to the Bosporus with their walls and ornate railings add to the opulence.