Holy Cemeteries and City Symphonies

 

 

Welcome to the best view of Istanbul, from Pierre Loti Hill. This is the Golden Horn looking one way,




and this is the old city in the (way) background looking the other way, from the side of the hill that is the biggest cemetery I have ever seen:






Jessica, when my German host, Marcel, suggested I go to see this cemetery with an amazing view up above the fourth most holy mosque in the Muslim world (it was not mentioned in my Lonely Planet), I had to do it in your honor (Jessica is obsessed with graveyards and her obsession paid off in a big way while we were in Central Vietnam.)

Here you can see how well these plots are attended - many have rose gardens and yellow marigolds. This "Cemetery of the Great Eyup" is where many famous Ottomans are buried - and scores of people were here today because of Ramadan, which ends this weekend. I would say about one out of twenty were tourists - the rest here as pilgrims to a holy place at a holy time. Very humbling.




Here is a view of the cemetery from the tram - which I did not find on the way UP the hill (in 95 degree heat), but of course I found it for the way DOWN... but a very nice guy named "John" helped me climb up some extremely steep stairs to find the view. Pierre Loti was a French naval officer and poet/writer who fell in love with Istanbul - and this view - in the 1870's. It is from the viewpoint of the top picture that he wrote one of his most famous novels.

 

Here are some very different grave markers that are next to the Eyup Mosque at the bottom of the stairs:

The mosque and a close-up of the tiling on the outer wall:

 

 

I arrived during the call to prayer - it seems that women were segregated to this outside area, and the men were either inside or right outside in a covered structure filled with prayer carpets. It was there that I saw the man behind the curtain... the man with the microphone singing the call to prayer. I felt like I was seeing The Wizard of Oz. Below, I captured the "Mosque Cat" on camera. Every mosque has one of these scrawny little things sleeping away on marble.

 

 

 Getting anywhere that isn't a major tourist attraction is always interesting. Marcel had written everything down for me, and Eyup was outside the area of my map of Istanbul. It involved catching a local ferry and getting off at the fourth ferry stop. Doesn't sound too difficult, right? Well, I got to the ferry and approached the ticket booth and it went something like this:

 

Me: "Ticket to Eyup?"

 

Five Turkish ferry operators: "YELLING LOUDLY YELLING LOUDLY YELLING LOUDLY!"

 

One runs to find someone who speaks English and he comes running: "Ferry to Eyup one hour. You go Eminuno, take bus."

 

Me: "I wait for one hour."

 

Six Turkish ferry operators: "YELLING LOUDLY YELLING LOUDLY YELLING LOUDLY!"

 

English: "Okay."

 

I start to walk away to find something to do for an hour.

 

STFO: "YELLING LOUDLY YELLING LOUDLY!"

 

English: "Lady! Ferry at 1:00. Forty minutes!"

 

Okay then. A lot of yelling and trying to force a bus ride on me, when the Eyup ferry was on its way.

 

At 12:55, I am back to catch the Eyup ferry with a mass of people. I begin to board the ferry.

 

STFO: "YELLING LOUDLY!"

 

English: "Lady! No! Eyup ferry five minutes." He points to the water. "There!" And fifty Muslim passengers turn to look at me as I swim back against the boarding swarm.

 

So it took a village. When I returned a few hours later, I took a moment to go over to the STFO's and give them a "thumbs up a thank you." They all nodded and gave me a thumbs-up back.

 

 

Before this journey, I returned to the Durumzade place for an early lunch - the Anthony Bordain-endorsed wrap joint from my Culinary Backstreets tour. I ordered the lamb this time; here he is making my sandwich:

You can see the lamb on the skewer cooking over the coals, but what makes this sandwich extra special is that every so often, he takes the lamb off the coals and wipes the grease on the durum wrap. Great technique~

He's almost done with my sandwich when a girl comes in carrying luggage, sweating worse than I am.

She says to me, "I have to get one more for the road. I'm catching my plane home today."

She had only been here four days, and this would be her third visit to Durumzade. She had been traveling through Europe - three days in Italy, three in Greece, three in Amsterdam. "Next time, I'm going to slow it down a lot," she says, and I can relate. I have slowed it down A LOT. Possibly TOO MUCH. Anti-Amazing Race style, which is my least favorite TV show EVER. It gives me so much anxiety, all those people racing through places that they don't get to enjoy even for a moment...

As we chat, an idea occurs to her. "My friend would absolutely love one of these. I should bring one home to him."

I recognize a kindred spirit when I meet one. I have had similar irrational thoughts on many occasions - hey, I would love to bring one of these home to my dad. I did bring him a Pork Chop John's sandwich from Butte once, but that was only a two hour flight. "You say you're from New York?" I clarify (learned it from the best) and she deflates a little and says, "Yeah, it would be pretty bad when it got to him, wouldn't it? I have a four-hour layover in London, too."

"Unless you have a cooler..." I sympathize.

But she got over it because of the excitement of eating her sandwich at the airport, while everyone else ate airport food.

After the holy visit to Eyup. I went to try a famous roasted eggplant topped with mince meat - at a restaurant very close to my amazing artist's apartment. Here it is:



 

Really simple, really good. I need to start roasting eggplant more. Then, hours and a long nap later, I journeyed out to the Chiangir district to eat at the restaurant where Marcel works. He told me that their chef was Pakistani and cooked with Hindi spices and strongly suggested I try it. He's been spot on with all of his recommendations, so I obeyed. It was fantastic - a curry chicken with rice and yogurt sauce, with flatbread.

 

As I walked home from dinner, I crossed a bridge with a view of the old city across the Bosphorus and the "newer" city behind. It was 10:15 and the call to prayer sounded, but this time I could hear up to eight calls to prayer simultaneously. I had to stop on the bridge and soak in the sounds that surrounded me on every side - a multi-mosque symphony over one of the most beautiful cities on earth on the night before the last day of Ramadan.

 

Not a bad day - not at all.