Guide to a Bosphorus Cruise

The first step is to select a boat. To do this, simply stroll along the edge of the river and wait for the approach. Soon a man will appear by your side, showing you a boat, mentioning a price, describing the features of your upcoming trip with a winning smile. You may accept, or disdaining the price, move on to the next offer.

Once aboard the upper deck of your chosen ferry, you will cruise slowly through the Golden Horn, where river and sea connect, around small junk boats, individual fisherman, giant ferries, and cruise ships alike. Dozens of jellyfish float alongside your boat, and colorful apartment buildings pile upon each other on the hills to one side. Soon you will be sporting "that windblown look", despite your efforts to marshal your hair into place against the gale.

Beyond the Golden Horn you breeze along the European side of the Bosphorus, admiring Mosques and Palaces set at the water's edge, and watching a seagull join a nearby fisherman in his boat. You cross under a vast extension bridge, the first to connect Europe and Asia, and alongside a castle once built in an effort to shut down trade to Istanbul and conquer it. Eventually you put put across the river to the Asian side for the return journey.

The Asian side of Istanbul is residential, showing off beautiful waterfront homes with well-manicured hedges and glassy swimming pools. Occasionally a friendly neighborhood breaks the monotony of wealth and you see boys and men swimming off the asphalt edge of the land. A girl in a black burka wades in one private little river inlet.

Crossing back through the Golden Horn you take in the Old City on the hill far above you, the spires of the Blue Mosque crowning a series of domes and towers. New Mosque welcomes you back to port as you cross under the fisherman standing on the Galata Bridge and dock.

Watch out for your first few steps on land, they may be a bit wobbly after two hours in the swells of the Bosphorus.

Reflections on Istanbul

The Blue Mosque, from the gardens of Hagia Sophia.

The many domes and arches inside.

Stained glass in the Blue Mosque.

Turks are reknowned for their national pride, and flags seemed to be everywhere.

Inside the Spice Bazaar

The nougat wheel

Nuts

It's difficult to add anything to what Betsy wrote about Istanbul. When we were eating dinner on the rooftop terrace of our hotel the second night of our stay, she asked me why Istanbul seemed different from Paris or London, two cities we had recently visited. And I wasn't really sure, but it certainly did seem different. Paris and London seemed more like something we did -- we went, we saw, we toured, we posed. Istanbul, on the other hand, was something we were a part of. There was no separation, no observer (us) and observed (the city). There was just an experience, in which we were lucky enough to participate.

The Blue Mosque was probably my favorite place in the city, both for its appearance, and for what it represents. The layers of domes seem to grow out of each other, perfectly framed by slender minarets that somehow give the place a regal look. Yet their purpose is entirely plebeian. The muzzein (singer) stands on the balcony of the minaret five times a day, and broadcasts his ezan to the whole city, inviting everyone to prayer. The muzzein is now often replaced by speakers and a recorded voice, but the effect is the same: an echoing chant that bounces between mosques, inevitably making you stop and reflect for a moment, regardless of what you are doing. The chant itself is haunting -- the first time I heard it, about two hours after we arrived, as we were walking around the mosque -- I got chills. It continued to be a powerful yet calming presence for the duration of our stay, even at 5:30 in the morning or 11:00 at night.

Another of my favorite areas was the Spice Bazaar, a thriving, vivid market that seemed to provide as many smiles and laughs as spices. The merchants knew exactly how to draw you in, and were all as friendly as can be. One of the most bizarre creations was the "nougat wheel," a tower of nut-filled nougats from which the merchants would cut you slices to sample.

Turkey is, of course, being courted by the EU, but my immediate impression was that it would be a shame for Turks to join the EU. It is a thriving culture with a rich history, a relatively stable political infrastructure, and so many traditions that stand outside the European experience, that it would seem a shame to see Turkey suffer the homogenization that must accompany such a move. Istanbul, at least, is a swarm of color and spontaneity, from the carpet merchants inviting you to tea, to the stuffed bazaars hawking everything from jewelry to decorated toenail clippers. There is no way to box Turkey -- you just have to live it. And if you go, you'll have no choice but to do so.

Istanbul: Joining the Swirl

The Hagia Sophia seen through a blooming tree

Fishermen on the Galata Bridge in front of the New Mosque

Ceramics for Sale below the Blue Mosque

A Pretzel vendor feeds the Pigeons at 7 am

Textiles for Sale at the Grand Bazaar

Hookahs at the Grand Bazaar

Interior Domes of the Blue Mosque

Cafe Scene

Cookies on Display

A Stall in the Egyptian Bazaar

Walnut Stuffed Figs

People washing before Prayer at the New Mosque

A Rug mid-weave

Istanbul is a swirl. It is the taste of pistachio produced in every texture - whipped with almond into a cookie cone, resting whole as the eggs in a pastry bird's nest, dripping with honey in a golden brown turnover. It is a kitten walking across a wall early in the morning. If it looked left it would see the pink dome of the Hagia Sophia; right, the grey domes of the Blue Mosque, but it is too focused on its next step to care.

It is the hotelier demanding to see which kind of apricots you have purchased, and nodding approvingly when he sees they are the dark Turkish ones. It is the men glued to every stand in the Egyptian Bazaar, swooping scoops of tea under your nose before you can blink, cutting off bites of nutty turron or turkish delight for you to try, exhibiting rust orange piles of saffron and green curry powders, trying to make you laugh by pointing out the walnut stuffed dates labeled "Turkish Viagra." It is the roast corn stands on every corner, the pretzel man feeding doves with his leftovers, older and younger men alike gathering around sunset for games of street backgammon, watching you go by vaguely, as if to say people come and go, but backgammon is forever.

It is the heat slowly melting your defences while you are not paying attention and joy in a steady breeze. It is alleys filled with a skittles rainbow of colored cushions, waiters beckoning you in to drink your Turkish tea or smoke your hookah at their establishment. It is mosque courtyards full of people in all levels of respectful dress - some washing hands and feet at ablution fountains before prayer, others covering bare shoulders and legs with blue drape skirts and inventing head scarves so they can go in cameras at the ready.

It is spires on every horizon, the call to prayer sliding out from the Muezzins as you lay in bed early in the morning and late into the evening, each caller's call echoing through the city and bouncing off the others in a kind of sacred discordant harmony. It is sour cherry jelly on your toast, pillowy flat bread on your chicken, and warm milk on your cocoa puffs. It is a young boy eager to sell you bottled water, the corners of his mouth rising up to meet his ears as you approach and commit to his sale. It is taking pictures in a bakery jammed with neatly arranged trays of a dozen kinds of cookies you've never seen, and being given one on the house out of pure sweetness. It is a white piece of Turkish delight with chocolate nuts on top, urged insistently on you by its vendor, that tastes like Peeps. Except you like it.

It is being more densely packed in a beautifully constructed air-conditioned tram than you ever thought possible, making physical contact with four other people at the same time as they connect to four others, and so on through perhaps three hundred people as you all race in a body down from the hills of the Mosques to the waters of the Bosphorus's Golden Horn. It is running your hand over rough woolen rugs, munching on sesame circles, and trying to learn to tie a scarf over your hair, then regretting your success as the sweat dribbles down your forehead. It is the lights of the Blue Mosque turning gradually on behind you as you write; flicking a green bug off your leg, and then turning to push aside the curtain and see freshly golden towers and domes behind you as a cool breeze floats into the rooftop bar where you sit.

It is new to my experience. As I eat, wander, talk to Brett, read, watch the Olympics, walk through the streets, sleep - the normal details of life - Istanbul swirls, mixing me in as part of itself for our few days here. Somehow I feel it would take more than a few hundred thousand visitors each day to affect its solidity. It is Istanbul, and its roots go far deeper than any little 21st century issues or personalities that might arise. More than any city I've ever visited, I imagine Istanbul, the city, as a living thing with its own ancient soul and its own dreams.

There is the last call to prayer of the night, curving down from the now light-flooded minarets behind me, mixing with the "romantic" Spanish music coming from the corner stereo of the rooftop bar. Millions across the city are taking out prayer rugs one last time, or pausing in their work to listen and connect with something larger. Goodnight Istanbul.