Poison for your mother-in law?

So here’s the next instalment of ‘What I did on my holidays’! I guess I have to say that when you are in a city as big as Istanbul, the last thing you can do efficiently is see it. We decided to do a city tour – only a half day, but at least it would give us an idea of what we then wanted to go and see in slow time.

The company is situated right next to Hagia Sophia and they use double Decker buses. Being pushy ‘Poles’ we managed to snaffle the seats right at the front on the top deck. We were given head sets and all we had to do was adjust the speaker to English so that we had a guided tour in our own language. I have to say it was worth it. The bus stopped several times and places of interest were pointed out, with detail such as which day places were shut. Now that was worth knowing and we were able to plan around all that.

We were driven round the Golden Horn, across to Asia (!), up to Taksim Square, round the old city walls and finally back to Hagia Sophia. In all this took about 3 hours, and we were definitely ready for some lunch!!

After braving the inevitable carpet salesmen, we managed to get really good omelets. They were not boring at all – in fact they were extremely tasty. Food is very cheap if you eat locally and try to avoid the touristy places. There’s soooooo much lamb – and after months of living in a lamb-free zone, we were ready for it! YUM!

We decided to go into Hagia Sophia. It’s a real eye opener. It is a combination of Christian, Byzantine and Islamic decoration and is quite incredible. There is a lot of renovation going on but we were able to walk everywhere (it isn’t in formal use any more). When you go to the

Upper level you can look down – and there is even some Byzantine graffiti – the equivalent of Papadopoulos woz ‘ere! The architecture is impressive but what amazed us was that once you were on the upper level the floors there were marble – the effort that must have gone into the construction is mind-boggling.

After that it was back out not the fray….. beating off more carpet sellers…. Well…. Almost!!! Yes, we did succumb. We wanted to buy a small rug or a kilim for our Krakow apartment and he was such a nice man and we were given endless cups of apple tea and then …….. yes we saw the most beautiful carpets and rugs and kilims. Well, after all that we bought a rug and two kilims! BUT! We are only keeping the rug. One kilim has gone to son in Australia and one will go to son in South Korea! Anyway, not content with selling us those things the guys in this shop asked us to look at some silk rugs -and some of those were about one foot square – and, wait for it… are you sitting down? They were worth US$3,000!!!!!!! We nearly choked on our tea. To make us feel truly welcome we were then brought real Turkish tea and baklava and ice-cream! I tell you, carpet buying in Istanbul is a serious affair.

We escaped from the clutches and decided to go for a struggle through the Spice market. It’s the rival to the Grand Bazaar and in my opinion it’s much nicer. The smells and colours are just to inhaled and enjoyed. The crowds wander their way through and we were offered all sorts of things. Carpets – great to be able to say “Got some!”, spices, tea, leather, t-shirts, hats, and lots of Gold. But the highlight came when one lad, not to be put off by our smiling “No thanks”, leant towards David and said in a not-so sotto voce “Poison for you mother-in-law?” Now that had us in stitches. Good on him – that showed quick wit and class! Poor fella – no luck there either as we told him “Nah – she’s already dead!” He took it gracefully – i.e. he laughed with us!

Well, that’s it for today. Next session soon - promise!!!!!