Today, I was supposed to be landing in Istanbul — kicking off a weeks-long guidebook research trip through Europe. Instead, I’m home, doing my part to slow the spread of the coronavirus…and dreaming of my next trip to one of Europe’s greatest cities. Here’s a story from a previous trip to Istanbul, a few years ago. I imagine that when I get back there, it’ll be all the same, all over again.
With so many of us stuck at home for the foreseeable future, I believe a daily dose of travel dreaming can actually be good medicine. Here’s another one of my favorite travel memories — a reminder of what’s waiting for you in Europe at the other end of this crisis.
When I was in my twenties, I ended eight European trips in a row in Turkey. I didn’t plan it that way — but it became the natural finale, the subconscious cherry on top of each year’s travel adventures. Realizing I haven’t set foot in Istanbul for nearly a decade, I have decided to return to the city where East meets West. Comparing today’s Istanbul with the city that lives in my memories, will I find comforting similarities or jarring differences?
The moment I step off the plane, I remember how much I enjoy this country. Marveling at the efficiency of Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport, I pop onto the street and into a yellow taksi. Seeing the welcoming grin of the unshaven driver, who greets me with a toothy “Merhaba,” I blurt out, “Çok güzel!” I’m surprised I remember the phrase. It just comes out of me — like a baby shouts for joy. I am back in Turkey, and it is “very beautiful” indeed.
As the taksi turns off the highway and into the tangled lanes of the tourist zone — just below the Blue Mosque — all the tourist-friendly businesses still line up, providing a backdrop for their chorus line of barkers shouting, “Yes, Mister!”
I look at the scruffy kids in the streets and remember a rougher time, when kids like these would earn small change by hanging out the passenger door of ramshackle minibuses. The name for these vehicles — a wild cross between a taxi and a bus — is dolmuş, literally and appropriately translated as “stuffed.” The boys would yell out the name of the destination in a scramble to stuff in more passengers. I can still hear my favorite call, for the train-station neighborhood: “Sirkeci, Sirkeci, Sirkeci” (SEER-kay-jee). While Turkey’s new affluence has nearly killed the dolmuş, the echoes of the boys hollering from the vans bounce happily in my memory: “Topkapi, Topkapi, Topkapi…Sultanahmet, Sultanahmet, Sultanahmet.”
I pay my taksi driver and step out into the Sultanahmet neighborhood, stopping for a cup of tea to get my bearings. From my teahouse perch, I watch old men shuffle by, carrying nothing, but walking as if still bent under the towering loads they had carried all of their human-beast-of-burden lives. Istanbul, now with a population of more than 15 million, is thriving. The city is poignantly littered with both remnants of grand empires and living, breathing reminders of the harsh reality of life in the developing world.
And yet, this ancient city is striding into the future. Everyone is buzzing about the new tunnel under the Bosphorus, which gives a million commuters in the Asian suburbs of Istanbul an easy train link to their places of work in Europe. This tunnel is emblematic of modern Turkey’s commitment to connecting East and West, just as Istanbul bridges Asia and Europe. I also see it as a concrete example of how parts of the developing world are emerging as economic dynamos.
Walking down to the Golden Horn inlet and Istanbul’s churning waterfront, I cross the new Galata Bridge, which makes me wistful for the old bridge — now dismantled — which was crusty with life’s struggles. I think of how all societies morph with the push and pull of the times. While the beloved old bridge is gone, the new one has been engulfed in the same vibrant street life — boys casting their lines, old men sucking on water pipes, and steaming sesame-seed bread rings fogging up the panes of their glass-windowed carts. It reminds me how stubborn cultural inertia can be.
On the sloppy harborfront, the venerable “fish and bread boats” are still rocking in the constant chop of the busy harbor. In a humbler day, they were 20-foot-long open dinghies — rough boats with battered car tires for fenders — with open fires for grilling fish…fish that’s literally fresh off the boat. For a few coins, the fishermen would bury a big white fillet in a hunk of fluffy bread, wrap it in newsprint, and send me on my way. In recent years, the fish and bread boats were shut down because they had no license. After a popular uproar, they’ve returned — a bit more hygienic, no longer using newspaper for wrapping, but still rocking in the waves and slamming out fresh fish.
As the sun sets and evening prayer time approaches, I hike through teeming streets to the iconic Blue Mosque. The outer courtyard is crowded with families — worshipful parents and kids looking for entertainment. Two schoolboys high-five me and try out their only English phrase: “What is your name?” I answer, “Seven o’clock” and enjoy their quizzical look. I’m struggling to understand their society; they can deal with a little confusion as well.
Wandering under stiletto minarets, I listen as a hardworking loudspeaker — lashed to the minaret as if to a religious crow’s nest — belts out a call to prayer. Noticing the twinkling lights strung up in honor of the holy month of Ramadan, I think, “Charming — they’ve draped Christmas lights between the minarets.” (A Turk might come to my house and say, “Charming — he’s draped Ramadan lights on his Christmas tree.”)
The Blue Mosque offers a warm welcome. Stepping out of my shoes, I enter the vast space — more turquoise than blue — hoping for déjà vu that never comes. Something’s missing. Gone is the smell of countless sweaty socks, knees, palms, and foreheads that had soaked into the ancient carpet from worshippers’ energetic, physical prayer workouts. Sure enough, the Blue Mosque has a fresh new carpet — with a subtle design that keeps worshippers organized in the same way that lined notepaper tames written letters.
As the prayer service lets out, I’m caught up in a sea of Turks that surges toward the door. This is the kind of connecting-with-humanity moment that I seek out. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to experiencing the exhilaration of bodysurfing above a mosh pit. As I surf the flow of worshippers through the gate and out into the street, the only way to get any personal space is to look up into the sky. Doing that, I enjoy another prized memory…another Istanbul déjà vu: Hard-pumping seagulls flap their wings through the humid air in the dark sky before surging into the light, crossing and then circling the floodlit minarets.
The Hippodrome — a long, oblong plaza shaped like a chariot racecourse, as was its purpose 18 centuries ago — is invigorated by the multigenerational conviviality of the Ramadan crowds emptying out of the mosque. While the crowd seems to be gaining energy, I’m running out of steam. But before heading back to my hotel, I look for a teahouse to follow my end-of-day ritual.
I established this ritual in visits to Turkey as a backpacking student and I return to it now. I cap my day with a bowl of sütlaç: rice pudding with a sprinkle of cinnamon. It’s still served in a square steel bowl with a small matching spoon. Another part of the ritual: I don’t let a Turkish day go by without enjoying a teahouse game of backgammon with a stranger. Looking at the board tonight, I notice that it’s cheap and mass-produced, almost disposable. Today’s dice — plastic and factory-perfect — make me miss the tiny handmade “bones” of the 20th century, with their disobedient dots. But some things never change. To test a fun cultural quirk, I toss my dice and pause. As I knew would happen, a bystander moves for me. When it comes to backgammon, there’s one right way…and everybody knows it. And in Turkey, perhaps as a result of its ruthless history, when starting a new game, the winner of the last game goes first.
With each backgammon game, I think of one of my most precious possessions back home: an old-time, hand-hewn, inlaid backgammon board, with rusty little hinges held in place by hasty tacks, and soft, white wood worn deeper than the harder, dark wood. Twenty years after taking that backgammon board home, I open it and still smell the tobacco, tea, and soul of a traditional Turkish teahouse.
There’s almost nothing in my world that is worn or has been enjoyed long enough to absorb the smells of my life and community. It’s a reminder to me of the cost of modernity. At home, the feel and smell of my old backgammon board takes me back to Turkey. And when it does, I’m reminded how, in the face of all that modernity, the endangered though resilient charm of traditional cultures — anywhere in our world — is something to value.
Today in Turkey, the people — like those dots on the modern dice — line up better. The weave of a mosque carpet brings order. There’s a seat for everyone on the dolmuş, which is no longer so stuffed. Fez sales to tourists are way down, but the use of scarves worn by local women (a symbol of traditional Muslim identity) is way up. As I get caught up in moments of déjà vu, I realize that Turkish society is experiencing something similar: confronting powerful forces of change and progress while also wanting to stay the same.
(This story is excerpted from my upcoming book, For the Love of Europe — collecting 100 of my favorite memories from a lifetime of European travel. It’s coming out in July, and available for pre-order. And you can also watch a video clip related to this story: Just visit Rick Steves Classroom Europe and search for “Istanbul layers.”)
