Palaces and paintings

 

Saturday 21 September

Bleurgh. It's not supposed to rain here, is it? Cats and dogs. After a rather disappointing breakfast (especially the long life rolls wrapped in plastic), umbrellas are up and cagoules are on and we walk uphill to the tram which takes us pretty speedily to its terminus at Kabatas, where we get off and join the throng heading for the Dolmabahce Palace on the banks of the Bosphurus. 

Public transport here is pretty cheap - we inherited the Istanbul version of an Oyster card and each journey is 20TL (about 50p) each, applying to tram, ferry, metro and bus (but with the traffic here, you'd be made to use the latter unless you really had to - quicker to walk from the nearest metro or tram stop in the centre of the city.

Cheap is not an epithet you would apply to the palace. Built in the 19th century when the then sultan (following a visit to Europe and getting home decor envy) decided he wanted to move himself and his harem out of the centre of the city to be beside the river, Abdul Mecit virtually bankrupted the Ottoman Empire by creating a palace that rivalled Versailles in its opulence and grandeur. (No photos allowed inside.) Biggest chandeliers, mirrors and carpets I have ever seen, and soooo many chairs, all neatly set out. 

It's all a bit OTT - I find it a kind of sterile luxury - and even the harem part is pretty spectacular. We both found it all a bit repetitive, amazing though it is. A nice room is actually Ataturk's bedroom - rather than waste the palace when he formed the republic, it became his Istanbul base and he spent his last days there, passing away in his bedroom at 9.05am (so the clock is stopped at that time - this happens elsewhere too as a permanent memorial to their national hero.) It's kind of ironic that he went to live there in 1922 after the last sultan fled from the palace to live in exile in 1922, his predecessor really having paved the way for a republic by his extravagance. 

The gardens are pleasant, and when transferring from the main palace to the harem we had to exit river side and were treated to the sight of lots of small sailboats (dinghies?) having a race.

  

Feeling rather grandeured out, for a complete contrast we hopped back on the tram for a couple of stops and got off at Istanbul Modern, a new contemporary art museum within the new and trendy Gelataport complex which has a decent concession price for seniors (gotta love an old gits discount). After a pitstop in their nice cafe and a visit to the flooded rooftop terrace which the seagulls were enjoying (sadly not a combined cafe and terrace, really should be!) we saw some baffling but also some cracking works. Favourites included beautiful monochrome photographs of ordinary Turkish twentieth century life by Ozan Sagdic, a temporary exhibition for Olafur Eliasson's work (echoed Anish Kapoor for me), and this incredibly complex thread network installation by Chiharu Shiota that formed a tunnel through a room which must have been at least 40' square. One of those pieces that makes me think "where on earth did you start?" and was well worth a visit.

Dee buys a poster and we leave at closing time, wending our way through the narrow streets of Karakoy, where there are small quirky shops, Gulluoglu, the biggest baklava shop and cafe ever, a swanky new Marriott hotel, and more bars and restaurants than you can shake a stick at, along with the usual persistent frontmen who try to persuade you in. First though, a couple of Cosmopolitans in Happy Hour, but we did rather pay a price for waiting as by the time we're ready to eat, the local derby footie match between Galertaseray (European side) and Fenerbahce (ground on the Asian side, where the match is being played, even though they represent Fener which is on the European side) is about to begin, and any restaurant with a TV is full of blokes in football shirts (getting along quite nicely - at that point, anyway) swilling Efes in a fug of fag smoke. Gals won 3-1 apparently.

We find somewhere without a TV, and have a burger and a nice glass of red. (Sometimes the local food just gets a bit samey and you want what you want.) We find the T1 tram nearby afterwards as we think it wise to get back before the footie ends, and after getting off (we're near Grand Bazaar) we have that steep hill going back down to Kumkapi - always feels a bit longer at night.