On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Winter Wren
One of our sons is currently on a grand adventure of traveling around the world (mainly by train or bus where possible). We met up with him in Istanbul this past December as he was ending three months in various European countries and about to move into Asia.
We arrived in the late afternoon after a short flight from Malta (we had spent the prior week vacationing in Gozo and Valletta – perhaps a future submission). After the sunny and spring-like weather in Malta, the overcast skies and temperatures in the 50’s were an adjustment.

Our rental apartment in the Beyoğlu district had this awesome view overlooking the Bosphorus and the Dolmabahçe Mosque and palace. Here is the view that first night. You can see the Bosphorus Bridge lit up in the background.

There was still a bit of daylight left when we arrived, so I did a bit of reconnaissance of the Beyoğlu district where we were located. It started to lightly rain and was getting dark, but I made it as far as the Galata bridge pictured here. This bridge crosses the Golden Horn and connects the Galata neighborhood of Beyoğlu with the Sultanahmet district (where the classic sites of Istanbul/Constantinople are to be found). The upper part of the bridge has a central tramway surrounded by lanes in each direction for auto traffic and then wide pedestrian areas on either side overlooking the water. The sides were always crowded with fishermen (even in the rain as you can see here). The lower deck of the bridge is filled with restaurants.

Here is a close-up of the Yeni Mosque (dating from 1600s) on the Sultanahmet side of the bridge. Large mosques like this were prevalent throughout the city and were attractively lit up at night.

On my way to the bridge, I had followed the road along the Bosphorus shore. I decided to take a different way back to the rental so that I could check out the Galata Tower, which is perched on a hill overlooking the Golden Horn and the Galata neighborhood. The way wound through small twisty streets and alleyways like the above and I quickly got a bit lost in the dark. Surprisingly to me, seasonal decorations overhung many of the smaller streets as shown here.

With the help of Google maps, I made it to the base of the Galata Tower. As it is surrounded by medium rise buildings, it was difficult to get a good perspective of the whole tower from close up. Supposedly the view from the top is great, but it was pretty expensive to enter and ascend and I was already late for dinner.

A few nights during our stay, we visited the nearby Taksim Square neighborhood in Beyoğlu to eat dinner. This area has lots of restaurants and is a popular shopping district with global retail name stores. The square is dominated by this very modern mosque (built within the last decade) located at the top of another hill. There is a funicular you can take from the shore area up to the square to avoid the strenuous climb.

Istanbul is very urban generally, but (like any other big city), it has some greenery in parks scattered about. I visited a nearby park a few times to get my nature and greenery fix. Encounters with “feral” cats like these are common throughout Istanbul, whether in a park or neighborhood or when eating outdoors at a restaurant. The cats all seemed to be living their best lives and acting like they own the place. There are scattered cat houses about and residents will leave out food and water. The cats are unafraid and some even tolerate a bit of petting or will jump uninvited into your lap for attention. Apparently there are over a million such cats in the city!

Between sightseeing ventures, one could spend time in the rental looking at the traffic out on the Bosphorus. Besides large container ships and tankers, there are many passenger ferries, water taxi’s and there was also this strange Christmas-themed vessel to be seen on our next to last day. Right below our apartment, there were excursion boats for dinner and entertainment cruises. We didn’t take a dinner cruise, but we did take the ferry to Asia the day after our arrival (covered in part 2 of this series).

We had only a few non-cloudy days unfortunately. Here is a daylight view of the Dolmabahçe Mosque and palace from the apartment. To the right of the picture across the street was a big soccer stadium which hosted a game one of the nights we were there. There was much chanting and singing as well as cheering during the game, even drowning out one of the calls to prayers from the mosque here.

Sultanahmet could be seen looking west from our balcony. This picture was taken on our last night shortly after sunset. From left to right are some towers of the Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (with a ferry boat in front of the Blue Mosque). Visits to these sights are covered in future posts in this series.
oldster
I’ve always wanted to get inside of the Hagia Sophia, but the odds that I ever will are getting worse. Great to see the photos, all the same.
Ramalama
Wonderful photos which somehow reminded me of this novel called The Dervish House, set in ancient-modern-futuristic Turkey.
Now I wanna go to Turkey.
How did you rent an apt there…Airbnb? How did you get around, speaking English or were other languages involved?
Baud
It’s a nice city to visit.
Ramalama
Seasonal decorations on a smaller street is my favorite photo of the pack here. Looked at it without my reading glasses and it caught me by surprise. Glasses back on…and yes.
Jeffery
Fifty-seven days until Spring.
BretH
Going to show this to my son, who dreams of visiting Istanbul some day.
Winter Wren
@Ramalama: We re-read portions of the Lymond chronicles which has “The Disorderly Knights” partially set in Malta and then “Pawn in Frankincense” which is partially set in “Stamboul” to help set the scene on this trip.
Trivia Man
It is my #1 european bucket list city, thank you for the look and the helpful narrative. Im about halfway through the deep dive History of Byzantium podcast and Istanbul has such a fascinating history.
Has the new spelling taken over yet? Türkiye i think?
mali muso
Great photos! Happy to see the cats featured as I’ve always associated them with Istanbul. We have some good Turkish friends who keep reminding us to come for a visit. This is inspiration to get planning.
Winter Wren
@Ramalama: My wife used Vrbo for this rental and our rental in Gozo, Malta. I am pretty sure all of our interactions at restaurants and sights were in English with no challenges in understanding or even any need to resort to pointing to try to communicate. As a tourist mostly visiting the tourist areas, it was easy to get by just using that.
Winter Wren
@Trivia Man: Re: Türkiye – yes all of the local signage uses that spelling. My favorite book on the Byzantium phase of the city is John Julius Norwich’s “A Short History of Byzantium” – highly recommended.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
We so want to go back. Great city that I hope everybody who wants to go gets a chance to.
Thanks for sharing!
jowriter
Istanbul is my very favorite city. I met my daughter there in 2009 when she was stationed in Turkmenistan in the Peace Corps. I couldn’t get a visa for T’stan, but we had a fantastic time in Istanbul. I love the cats, the food, the architecture and so many centuries of history.
Denali5
Thanks for sharing your great photos. Istanbul is one of my favorite cities – so much to see, shopping the Souk is amazing, the food is wonderful. It is very walkable and not too expensive. Good to know you found a place via VRBO.
Betty
Americans generally know very little about Turkey, but it seems to be a fascinating place.
Albatrossity
A friend of mine, a business professor who had lived and taught in many parts of the world, always said that his favorite place in the whole world was Istanbul. I have always wanted to visit there, but it is likely that will never happen now. Thanks for the virtual tour!
MCat
Thank you so much. Fascinating. Great photos.
sab
@Winter Wren: I am rereading the House of Niccolo series, and Nicholas is just arriving there. What timing.
Geminid
@Betty: Turkiye has 85 million citizens, which puts it on a par with both Iran and Germany. It also fields Nato’s second largest army and air force.
Fun Turkiye fact: when the Turkish Republic was founded in 1923, Anatolia’s literacy rate was 7%, and that was just for men. I saw an estimate that only four out of a thousand Turkish women could read and write back then.
WendyBinFL
@Winter Wren: Thanks so much! Love your photos… and the concept of travel inspired by the Lymond Chronicles!
Mr. B and I have been to Istanbul three times, and thoroughly enjoyed the city. Our last visit, in June 2016, was the most dramatic. At the time, Turkish citizens were protesting the rule of Erdogan, who had launched his political career as mayor of Istanbul. We were taking a cruise around the eastern Mediterranean, and the ship cancelled our stop in Istanbul due to the unrest. We went anyway, making flight and hotel arrangements on our own, because months earlier we had arranged to attend an evening religious ceremony with the Sufis (Whirling Dervishes), something I did not want to miss. The city was eerily empty of tourists — we were the only ones staying in our hotel. While we were there, a police station a mile from our location was bombed, and a month after our return home, Ataturk airport was blown up. Scary, but seeing the Sufis was a profoundly spiritual experience, one we will always treasure.
PJ
@Geminid: that low literacy rate probably helped with changing from Arabic script to Roman characters. When so few people can read, the pain of changing would have been far less (but I bet there were plenty of upset scholars).
Geminid
@WendyBinFL: There was a coup attempt in Turkiye on July15(?), 2016 which would be the month after you left. It was a 24-hour affair, but over 240 people lost their lives.
Turkiye had successful military coups in 1960 and 1980. The Army hanged the populist Prime Minister and several of his associates after the one 1960.
After 1980 there were two soft coups by “Military Memorandum,” whereby Army leaders informed the President that they were in a coup-ing mood and he’d better replace the Prime Minister ASAP. The last of these was in 1997.
Turks assume the US backed these coups and probably instigated them. That’s one reason that even though Turks are known for their friendly and hospitable attitudes towards American visitors they generally don’t trust the US government one bit.
J_A
@Winter Wren:
Yours might be a different -and perhaps abridged version- edition. But my Penguin copy of Norwich’s Story of Byzantium is in three volumes.
Three EXCELLENT volumes, if I may
Geminid
@PJ: The introduction of a Raman-type alphabet was one of a number of reforms Kemal Ataturk introduced in order to modernize the new Republic. He understood how far Ottoman society was behind the Europeans, and that widespread public education was essential to catching up.
Switching to the new alphabet had another benefit: it made it harder for people to read the Koran. Kemal believed the Islam religious establishment was a reactionary force, and he did his best to limit its influence.
Winter Wren
@sab: I need to read that one!
Doug
@Winter Wren:
Those books are so good!
It’s been more than 30 years since I visited Istanbul, and the city has cleaned up a lot. I didn’t really feel safe as a foreigner in the neighborhood around the Galata tower, but maybe I just caught the wrong vibe on a particular day. In general, I found it one of the most amazing cities I have ever visited.
Winter Wren
@WendyBinFL: Our trip was very short, but I had one interesting experience walking back to our rental past a soccer stadium. Security was very tight with soldiers with machine guns and even a tank. I was stopped and my camera bag was searched. This was my only encounter with the government and military while we visited.
Winter Wren
@J_A: Haven’t read the full version – yes this is an abridged version he had published. Also love his “Normans in Sicily” tome – great writer!
Winter Wren
@Doug: I felt very safe (at least as a man traveling by myself on this foray)
Doug
@Winter Wren:
The city and the country were much, much poorer in 1993 — in ballpark figures annual GDP per person is seven times what was back then — so that probably contributed a great deal to the atmosphere. I felt fine wherever I went on the other side of the Golden Horn; I’m glad to hear that the zone that feels welcoming to outsiders has expanded!
WendyBinFL
Although our 2016 visit to Istanbul was disturbing in hindsight, we never felt threatened while we were there. Everyone we interacted with was gracious and kind. The manager of our hotel welcomed us by name when we first arrived! (That’s how we learned we were the only guests.) When we mentioned that we had chosen his hotel because of its proximity to the Sufi lodge, he directed a young man on his staff to walk us there. We knew it was just a couple of blocks away, but he insisted. Clearly, he was more attuned to potential risks than we were!
Barbara
@oldster: Nothing like the inside of the Hagia Sophia! It was spectacular! And we LOVED the underground cistern even MORE! OMG. The splendor with the lights and glass sculptures and the ornate arches and pillars made it just breathtakingly beautiful. We were there this past October and Istanbul became our favorite city, except maybe for Venice where I left my heart 5 years earlier!
Miss Bianca
I’m reading Gore Vidal’s Julian right now, where the eponymous hero talks about “the new city” of Constantinople, being built during his lifetime. Made me really want to visit Istanbul, and now this photo series makes me want to even more!
traveling mn
Your son’s travel itinerary is of interest. Can you post it?
bookworm1398
When we visited, one of the unexpected things we saw was a bunch of people fishing off the Galata Bridge at sunset. We were told the fish caught would be served in local restaurants the next day. Made me wonder why other cities with rivers don’t do this
Winter Wren
@bookworm1398: I can’t remember if I included it in this series, but I captured a photo at sunset from one of the restaurants when we were dining and you can see all of the fishing lines from the upper deck reflecting in the light.
Winter Wren
@traveling mn: He hasn’t shared the itinerary completely with us. He shares updates and pictures as he progresses. Mostly visiting capitals and large cities anywhere from several days to a week or more.
BigJimSlade
Ah, brings back good memories!