Last week, my boss Erol came over to my desk and asked if I had a minute. Whenever he says this, I always assume I'm about to get fired, but I got lucky this time. He sat down and said, "The weather is getting colder and I thought we might need some new photos for social media. What do you think about going to visit some of the major tourist attractions on a sunny day and taking lots of photos?"
I stared at him for a moment.
"So you're saying that when the weather is really nice, instead of coming to the office, you want me to visit beautiful historical places and take pictures?"
"Yeah. What do you think?"
I paused before saying, "This is a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the good of the company."
So on the next sunny day, I made the 20-minute intercontinental commute from Asia to Europe and started my day at the Spice Bazaar.
I'm normally opposed to taking pictures of people without their permission, partly because I think it's exploitative, but mostly because I'm afraid they'll get angry and say mean things to me. However after chatting with this guy a bit and asking if I could take a photo of the spices, he seemed agreeable as long as he was in the shot.
This is at Süleymaniye Mosque, which was completed in 1558 for Süleyman the Magnificent, by Mimar Sinan (basically the greatest architect to ever live). It's the biggest mosque in the city, which makes me feel pretty bad for the guy vacuuming.
Although I'd already visited these places, I didn't have many nice photos that could be used for social media. When I visited them a year ago for the app, my pictures were a form of note-taking. I photographed attractions like they were crime scenes, focusing on details and quantity over aesthetics. It didn't matter if there was a German tourist picking his nose in the foreground of the shot, as long as I could see the number of minarets the mosque had.
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| Here are some Ottoman graves outside of Süleymaniye Mosque. |
I couldn't resist taking a picture of these two guys randomly perched on this building. Plus, I was about 100 meters away, so I figured that they wouldn't see me.
They saw me.
The combination of these three cards guarantees that I can see and do whatever the hell I want in the city with complete impunity. Not really. But it does mean that I can see and do things a lot cheaper than the average tourist, which is pretty cool.
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Seriously though, the homely passport photo of 18-year-old me could be anyone.
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Opened in 1563, this mosque has the best Iznik tiles in the whole city. It's often overlooked by tourists, but is absolutely worth visiting!
Between visits from my dad and Kayla and working on the app, I've been fortunate to see most of these places several times already. Even so, there were a few new things. While the New Mosque was closed when I arrived, I got to see people preparing for the midmorning Call to Prayer. Neat-o!
This is the Obelisk of Theodosius located in the former Hippodrome. Don't get me started on how cool the Hippodrome's history is or we'll be here all day. First erected in the 15th century BCE, the obelisk was brought to Constantinople in the 4th century and has sat in the Hippodrome ever since...even after the magnificent racetrack fell into ruins.
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| Not bad for being 3,500 years old, eh? |
Over the past two years, I've visited the Hagia Sophia five times and the same scaffolding has stood resolutely in place, making symmetrical photographs a challenge. It's always a bit disappointing to find an attraction undergoing renovations when you visit, but it is a reminder of how old a place is and how impressive it is to be still standing.
This particular building has been around since 535 AD. Wowee! It was a church until 1453 and a mosque until 1935, when it was changed into a museum by the first president of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. After the Hippodrome it's my favorite historical tourist attraction in the city.
When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, the Hagia Sophia was immediately converted into a mosque. As representational imagery is prohibited in Islam, the 9th-13th century mosaics were removed or covered in plaster. Hidden for hundreds of years, much of the artwork was only uncovered in the 20th century. The plaster actually preserved the mosaics, which would otherwise be severely damaged or completely lost today.
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| 11th century mosaic of Constantine IX Monomachus, Christ, and Empress Zoe |
By mid-fall, the monsoon season of tourists slows to a trickle of tour groups for affluent European retirees and Turkish schoolchildren on field trips. This makes areas like Sultanahmet a lot less overwhelming.
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| A lovely stroll through Gülhane Park |
After taking a few hundred photos in Sultanahmet (most of them blurry) I made my way across the Golden Horn to the Beyoğlu district.
I'd been dying to see the new exhibit at the Pera Museum, 'Orientalism in Polish Art' and I wasn't disappointed. I'm finally at an age where I can (mostly) look at nude art without blushing. I was especially looking forward to seeing this piece, which I had only seen as a small image on the museum's website.
I eyed the security guard seated opposite the painting and wondered if the staff drew straws to see who got to stare at this lady's derriere all day.
I didn't realize until I saw the painting up close that the woman was actually dead and presumably strangled. I felt pretty weird about loving this painting, but it didn't stop me from buying a postcard of it.
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| "At the Order of the Padishah" by Franciszek Żmurko (1888) |
I stumbled upon ARTER, a free art gallery on İstiklal Avenue that currently has a temporary exhibit called The Roving Eye, which features artists from South East Asia. Very cool.
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| I'm so artsy-fartsy, I'm even wearing a black turtle neck. |
That's all for now, party people. I encourage my fellow Istanbulites to visit these places and my friends and family to come visit me so I can show them to you!
Take a look at the Discover Istanbul Instagram account or get more info on what I'm doing in the city.
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