Γεια σου οικογένεια και φίλοι
Merhaba aile ve arkadaslar
(Hello Family and Friends, in Greek and Turkish)
In case you wondered if we are still vagabonding, we have been back at home since October 19. Our 1st 2 dispatches reached you from our adventure, these last 2, from the confines of our home, refining our road notes.
Our exit from the island of Naxos initiated the last 2 weeks of our adventure, leaving from a very small airport with a 500 square foot terminal and a flight in a 2 prop ATR 42 plane with 13 rows, a capacity of 42 passengers, lifting off the tarmac for a short 35 minute hop to Athens. Our accommodation, the AD Athens Luxury Hotel, was perfectly placed for ambulating to most of the area’s activities and points of interest that we had earmarked. The front desk staff were extremely helpful. One had an amazing background and future aspirations, 27 year old Angel, who it turned out, is a polyglot, mastering 7-8 languages, on his way to being a hyper polyglot, prime material for an international spy! We asked him to let us know when he joins the CIA. His answer: “You’ll never know because I couldn’t reveal it!” `After settling in, we went up to the rooftop where breakfasts would be served and found an astounding view of the Parthenon atop the Acropolis. Later we moseyed out to Plaka, an old historical neighborhood abutting the north and east slopes of the Acropolis and built on top of the residential areas of the ancient town of Athens (Athinia). Having read a review about a 1909 establishment, Bretto’s Bar, we targeted it as an excuse to walk the labyrinthine streets our 1st night. As addresses mean next to nothing in Athens, especially to those of us who live in horizontally and vertically designed grids, it took a while before we discovered it.
Arriving at Bretto’s we found a small and friendly environment, with multi-colored bottles of every liquor imaginable, stacked to the ceiling, along with a huge menu of cockamamie cocktails to match. Since the bar stools were all engaged, we sat at Bretto’s office desk nestled down 2 steps and in the corner, with paperwork, invoices and other business paraphernalia strewn about, very folksy! Cocktails included one made from the sap of the Mastic tree and Tsipouro, a pomace brandy, left-over from winemaking. We eventually shared our spot with a couple in their 30’s, together for 15 years, married half of those, swapping life stories, ending with their comment about us being an “inspiration” (apparently meaning old and still moving). With no food available here, we moved on, discovering Taverna Giovetsakia located on a street corner with greenery climbing the walls, choosing the sidewalk seating to watch the Sunday night foot traffic. This eatery has been in business since 1959 and the male waiters looked and acted like they had been there since day 1. Dined on moussaka pork souvlaki and then walked along the back roads at the foot of the Acropolis, looking up to one corner, bathed in a soft golden light.
11:30 AM on Monday found us in line for 30 minutes to buy tickets and gain entrance to the Acropolis. Our first exposure at the base was the 6th Century B.C. (or B.C.E, “Before Common Era” in today’s political correctness) Theatre of Dionysus where Greek plays would be performed for the viewing pleasure of 17,000 citizens back in the day. Maggie took a front row seat that provided a view of some small sculptures visible only to those seated up front, one such representation being Hercules holding up the heavens. The next venue, before climbing the 500 feet to the top of the Acropolis, was the 2nd Century A.D. (or C.E., Common Era) Odeon of Herodes Atticus, seating 5,000, for performances by musicians and orators. Our imaginations went crazy conjuring up images of these audiences and the art performed more than one to three thousand years ago! Ascending to the top of the Acropolis we encountered large cranes and workmen, continuing with restoration work that began most recently in 1983. The sun was beating down on us, amidst masses of selfie-wielding tourists. We would periodically hear the ‘referee’ like whistle blows that signified yet another tourist had violated the signage about not touching anything or climbing past roped off areas. Marble pieces and large chunks were stacked everywhere. A moment of humor took place when a kid drifted over to a large mechanical tool and his father told him, “We’re here for the ruins, not that”! Hey, what does that dad not understand about little boys loving construction stuff?? What with 2 hours of the tourists and heat, we finally moved on down the hill, ending up having a small lunch near our hotel, listening to a saxophonist on the sidewalk while we dined on Greek salad and a spinach wrap. We ended the day in the alleyway behind our hotel at Hitchcocktails, a themed bar and then on for a meal at Opos Palia, with itinerant musicians performing outside on the sidewalk, while we ate our meal of butter beans, village pasta with traditional cheese and wine, all for 20 Euros!
We decided to do one more tourist attraction and purchased tickets to the Parthenon Museum and 2 days of Hop On/Off bus city travels, the latter we took advantage of immediately, to scour the city for areas we might want to explore on foot…another RECON mission!! Before disembarking the bus at Syntagma Square, we espied an area to return to, Monastivaki Thession/Katzia Square, harboring an extensive flea market. Walking back through the Plaka neighborhood, we discovered a 12th century religious icon, the Church of Theotokos Gorgoepikoos and Ayios Eleftherios at Mitropoleos Square, entering and wowed by the simplicity of the interior. Continuing on, we came across street art (graffiti) in the alleyways, climbing marbled stairs up to a park on the east side of the Acropolis supplying some respite from the blazing sun. Dinner that night was in Plaka at Apollonia Lyra, with lamb chops and grilled vegetables, lured in off the street by a very hyper owner, enticing us with the prospect of live music, a duo singing together with their guitar and mandolin, an unexpected and magical evening as it turned out, authentic Greek music beautifully danced to by an “older” and loving couple, 10 feet away from us. Ahhh, the vagaries of wandering around and serendipitous results.
Our last day in Athinia had us at the Acropolis museum, walking on clear glass floors that revealed remnants below of digs and partial artifacts. The galleries themselves presented an amazing voluminous array of sculptures, pottery and artisanship, stories of Athena and mythical figures. No photography allowed so one has to use their imagination! A lunch of pork gyros, roasted red sweet peppers stuffed with goat/sheep cheese in brine, listening to a couple of guys on the sidewalk next door playing accordion and mandolin, pigeons dive bombing us as we left to walk to the flea market we had seen the day before from the Hop On/Off bus. This was probably the tackiest conglomeration of small store niches ever! Well, it had looked promising from the bus. We walked into the BestWay shop which sported at least 2,000 Smart Phone coverings in every possible color and design. As we quickly removed ourselves from this scene, we walked along a path with many small excavation sites, long abandoned and rife with cats. We then encountered a couple of African guys asking us to attend their musical performance later in the evening, quickly trying to tie on our wrists some small beaded bracelets over our protests. Then they had the gall to ask for donations for something we hadn’t wanted. I thought I would temper this situation by giving them 2 Euros, which they found offensive, since they had ‘given’ us 2 bracelets. I returned my ‘wristlet’ to them, walking away from this tourist scam.
On to Istanbul next, riding with Max to the airport, hearing his story about owning a women’s shoe making factory and losing it in the 2008 economic crisis, becoming a taxi driver and adapting…no regrets as he has his health. We traded stories and said I looked like Bill Clinton. He told us folks thought he looked like Robert De Niro and he absolutely did when we took a closer look at him pulling the luggage from the trunk of his cab. Max made our ride informative, personal, and pleasant. By this time, Maggie and I realized how the colds and coughs we had picked up here had gotten worse, so when we arrived at our Old Town Istanbul accommodation, Hotel Osmanhan, we immediately asked for directions to the nearest pharmacy to purchase drugs. Again, street names and numbers mean nothing, so the directions were “go right out the front door, then right up the hill, turn left, then turn right, then right again and eventually, left”! Suffice it to say that I got stumped and espied a Tourist Police station for guidance, being ignored except for a woman who had been inside with these guys, coming out to sidle up next to me, lighting a cigarette, her ample cleavage bursting out of her blouse. I decided I didn’t need any help after all, seeing a busy street, and realized it might be where the pharmacy was, and it was so. Two young girls who spoke no English sold me something that turned out not to be effective! We had better luck in the days to come, though. We had the first of 5 dinners at a local venue, Albura Kathisma, 1.5 blocks away, consuming Grand Marnier for medicinal purposes. We also experienced the dark and dank 3rd century A.D. cave through a small stone door off the dining area, which led up several slights of stairs to the street above, through a different restaurant hosting patrons lounging about, smoking their water pipes (nargiles), which contain a very dark, high nicotine tobacco. Afterward, we walked around the main fountain between mosques, their minarets silhouetted against the night skies along with a 2/3 moon. By this time, we had become totally disoriented in the dark, eventually finding our way back, passing by a group of madly barking feral dogs, with colored tags in their ears, a tracking device whose use we never fully comprehended. The 8 P.M. call to prayers coming from the mosques were eerie, but much more melodious than those we experienced in Indonesia 4 years ago.
Our first full day in Istanbul included using the sidewalk machines for purchasing and putting money on a transportation card valid for trams, ferries and buses, helped by a local who offered to show us how they worked and then asked if we were interested in coming to see his carpets. This kind of offer followed us the whole 5 days of our stay. We would use responses like “My wife has asthma and we can’t have carpets in our home”. One of the better responses from the hawkers was “Why wouldn’t you want to buy something you don’t need?” We continued on to find a different pharmacy, fending off a rainstorm, buying an umbrella (which we never did use), running next door to a cafe where we purchased Turkish coffees, warming ourselves up from the rain and winds. We changed plans due to the weather, aborting an idea to take a ferry on the Bosporus Strait. So, Plan B was a visit to the 560 year old Grand Bazaar (Kapalicarsi, in Turkish), a huge facility hosting over 4,000 stalls vending everything imaginable. We entered after the 1:00 P.M. call to prayer which had resulted in an evacuation of many of the sellers. Maggie shopped for gifts for family & friends. I did question the authenticity of the 6 small ceramic, painted bowls, claiming to the seller that they were probably “made in China”, which he did not find amusing, ensuring they were locally created. We came across an interesting trio from Madrid, with their heads wrapped in gauze and their scalps stained brown with henna, discovering that Turkey has become a major mecca for FUE (Funicular Unit Extraction) hair transplants and these guys’ appearance reflected their recent treatments. In the USA this would be a $10,000 deal, here, only $3,000. After exhausting the bazaar we moved on to the nearby 350 year old Spice Market (Misir Carsisi) near the Ferry terminal. At Stall #61, we had pomegranate and eucalyptus tea, ending up purchasing a Eucalyptus Ginger and Orange peel blend (for our colds) from a friendly young Egyptian, whose personality we captured in one of our photos. We then used our newly-purchased transportation card to board a tram to get back to our local stop at the Sultanahmet station.
In spite of our health issues, the next day was the most densely-packed of our stay in Istanbul, commencing with entering the grounds of the Sultanahmet Camil (Blue Mosque) from the Arasta Bazaar side, with Maggie having to quickly find a make-shift way to cover her head for entry. From the massive courtyard, we placed our shoes into plastic bags, carrying them with us as we trod the carpeted area, cruising around the interior. We were awed by the huge central prayer area which was for males only, females relegated to small side areas and the arches containing over 20,000 Iznik hand-crafted ceramic tiles, ornately painted blue, predominately, hence the name of the mosque. Still feeling the effects of our illnesses, we decided to take advantage of our transportation card and hop on the tram and ride it for a while, resting our bones. Being the weekend, every tram that passed was SRO, so we abandoned that effort and wandered back on foot toward our hotel, finding an uphill pathway of cobbled stones, passing by a now-closed Sarnic Restaurant, created from a 1500 year old water cistern, and had been a beautifully appointed classy venue. Passing by the Hali Muzesi (Carpet Museum) that had been heavily advertised around town, we inadvertently entered the domain of the 15th Century Ottoman sultans, the Topkapi Palace (Sarayi), overlooking the Bosporus Strait, resplendent with its grassy grounds and its huge, stately structure, Haiga Irene, a Greek Orthodox church (one of only a few churches in Istanbul not converted to a mosque). It is now a museum and concert hall, with a flock of green parrots inhabiting nooks and crannies near the roof line.
Rounding out key ‘must-dos’ while in this Islamic cultural center included a morning underground in the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan), a space which had been a basilica before usage as a cistern. But first, we wandered the streets to find the location for the evening’s Sufi Whirling Dervish performance at Hodjapasha to ensure we could get there expeditiously by 7 P.M. Good thing we did this RECON, as it took us an hour to finally discover it and then memorize key land marks, e.g. Euro Star Hotel, to get back to it later. Addresses, as mentioned earlier, mean nothing! That mission accomplished, we retraced our path back to the Cistern, descending into the bowels of this 6th century entity, capable of holding 100,000 tons of water over 9800 square meters of ground, with over 300 30 feet high marble columns, eerily lighted as they supported stone arches. We were walking on raised platforms 10 feet above the moist ground floor, eerily-toned and piped-in music serving to create an unusual experience. The 2 most interesting pillars were the Medusa (the largest and its head laying on the ground) and the Crying Column, the lore being to stick your finger in the hole where the tears “appear” and make a wish. Our afternoon was spent taking the tram across the Galata Kopru (bridge) that spans the Golden Horn, espying 200 or so folks with fishing poles, trolling over the primary inlet of the Bosporus on a lazy Sunday afternoon, then taking the funicular up to the heights over the city, Taksim Square, in Istanbul’s New Town, with a view overlooking the Straits, enjoying 4 street musicians (2 guitars, a fiddle and a disc drum).
Thanks to our due diligence on finding Hodjapasha earlier in the day, we arrived early for this Sema event, housed in a former bath house, lending to the cachet of this whole venue and evening fare. The Sema is a serious religious dance performed to express emotion and achieve the wisdom and love of God. It originated in Turkey, in the Islamic sect of Sufism, which was founded by Mevllana Rumi and this night included 5 male musicians with symbolic instruments and 4 graceful male dancers attired in white dress. The photo included is from the museum-like array of Sufi/Rumi historical information in the lobby, since photos or any recording were not allowed in the cavern-like, 200 person capacity stone venue. We also included a photo briefly describing Rumi’s philosophy for context. Our evening was somewhat strained by Maggie’s coughing fit as we were instructed that there should be no disruptions during this 50 minute performance!
Our last day in Istanbul was different from that which we had planned, i.e., we had to abandon a ferry ride to Asian Istanbul and another ferry to one of the Prince’s islands, due to our health situation and lack of energy. We stayed close to our hotel, cruising the small and local Arasta Bazaar, looking for more gifts for friends and family, stumbling upon a shop selling “Evil Eyes”, Maggie bartering, me, going off to find an elusive ATM, finally finding it and returning to pay Maggie’s efforts in cash. We had one of our best experiences as a result, sitting with the owner and his friend, the owner with a great command of English, pouring Finlandia vodka into orange juice, talking politics (both American and Turkish) for over an hour…a very nice personal ending to our time in Istanbul. The next morning, off to the airport and on to 3 days in Paris to lick our wounds and recover in the Latin Quarter, one of our favorite haunts, including the infamous Shakespeare & Co. and our favorite restaurant, Le Petit Prince. We came back ‘rode hard and put away wet” and will revisit how long a period we should travel on one getaway in the future.
Cheers, Stan & Maggie