Further Explorations of Istanbul – Agia Irene and a Bosphoros Cruise (and another scam alert)
Today started well with a lovely breakfast served on the roof terrace of the hotel. We had amazing views of the Blue Mosque on one side and Agia Sofia on the other. Over in the other direction was the magnificent Bosphorus. For a budget hotel, you couldn’t get a better location with views like this.
Breakfast was a selection of small dishes with omelette, 5 different types of cheese, olives, cucumber, tomatoes, bread, sour cherry jam, honey and Nutella with tea. Just perfect.
We were also provided with some built-in entertainment from the roof terrace of the neighbouring Seven Hills Hotel. We watched as tourists took turns to have food snatched from their hands by a flock of determined seagulls with voracious appetites. This, it seemed, judging by the queue of people, was one of the top ‘Instagram’ opportunities of Istanbul. What a shame they all seemed so completely oblivious to the incredible sight of Agia Sofia just next to them.
Yesterday was a long day, so the hope was that today’s itinerary was going to be a little less frenetic. The morning’s temperature was over 27 degrees and creeping, so no long hikes today. (Let’s see how that goes!) The plan is to stay in the Sultanahmet district and start with a visit to Agia Irene.
We made our way to Sultanahmet Square, a good starting point for many of the key sights in the old town, but it was easy to get distracted. The views between Agia Sofia and the Blue Mosque were hypnotising. In our eagerness to get out and explore yesterday, we’d missed so much of the Blue Mosque complex, such as the Mausoleum of Sultan Ahmed I and the Madrassa next to it.
The short walk to Agia Irene took us along the perimeter walls of Agia Sofia. At the corner, we turned onto a quiet, leafy street with some beautiful houses built in the old Ottoman style.
Almost with a bang, we found ourselves at the very busy square in front of the Topkapi Palace. This is also where you will find the visitor entrance for Agia Sofia, and it was already heaving with people. We discovered later that two huge cruise ships had docked in Istanbul, hence the large number of tour groups queuing for the attractions. The square itself has some interesting structures. The first is the ornate entrance into the Carpet Museum, which is unfortunately closed. Currently, there is a lot of construction taking place in Agia Sofia, which is impacting access to some of the sights. The other structure sitting centrally in the square is the even more ornate Fountain of Ahmed III.
Agia Irene sits within the complex of the Topkapi Palace. The hope was that we could purchase an entry ticket just for the Agia Irene Museum. Entry into the grounds was free of charge. After passing through a security check, we arrived in a well-manicured green space.
Then a huge amount of confusion ensued as we were given conflicting information about tickets into Agia Irene Museum. This was very frustrating. We were told by one person at the ticket office that it was entry via a combined ticket only at 2400TL per person. At the entrance to the museum, another lady told us it was 900TL payable at the ticket office. Back at the ticket office, we were again told it was by combined ticket only. We didn’t want to visit the Topkapi Palace – as magnificent as it is, we didn’t have the time. I won’t go into the negative experience we had with the staff there, but I will say that a little customer service training wouldn’t go amiss.
Unfortunately, we were only able to view Agia Irene from the exterior, but here is a little bit of what I do know about this amazing building.
Agia Irene was built on the site of an older wooden temple in a typical Byzantine style with a basilica and three naves. It was subject to several destructive events, including a fire and an earthquake, which resulted in several phases of reconstruction.
Agia Irene was the second-largest church in Istanbul after Agia Sophia and the oldest church of the Byzantine era. After the fall of Constantinople, it was never converted into a mosque, which makes it unique. It initially became a place to store weapons. Despite its lack of public use, minor restorations were carried out by various notables, and gradually the collection of weapons began to be systematically organised. In 1846, Agia Irene became the Imperial Museum, housing weapons, antiquities and works of art. This significant move marked the birth of Turkish Museums as we know them today. The building also operates as a concert hall due to its magnificent acoustics. Unlike most other surviving Byzantine churches in Istanbul, Agia Irene has another claim to fame by having the longest continuous history as a non-religious building after 1453. That’s impressive!
Anyway, if we have a free day, we may come back. The Topkapi Palace itself is vast, and it would require most of a day to do it and the ticket price justice.
By now, the square outside was even more overwhelmed with tourists, and we had to escape. Just ahead of us, we could see the coast and thought that we might find a bit of a sea breeze to give us some relief from the heat. We followed the defensive walls of the Topkapi Palace down. The walls seemed to go on forever indicating the size of the place. Eventually, we found ourselves on a busy highway where we realised taking this route was a mistake. It seemed to take an eternity before we reached civilisation. The path along the highway was hot and fume-filled and not a pleasant walk at all. So much for taking it easy today!
Eventually, we arrived at the harbour where the boats depart for the Bosphorus cruise. This hadn’t been in our plan for today, but it was just what we needed at the moment in time. The tickets were very good value at 250TL each for a journey of 1.5 hours. Thankfully there was a boat ready and waiting to depart.
We took seats up on the shaded deck from where we could already feel a gentle cooling breeze. A sprightly man made his way along the aisles with a tray of tea, which was reasonably priced at around a quid a cup. Throughout the journey, he alternated his trays with soft drinks and then tubs of sliced fresh fruit. We wanted for nothing.
The Bosphorus channel was busy with fishing boats, ferries, monstrous cruise liners and cargo ships all sharing the busy strait, giving a sense of the Bosphorus as a working waterway. The boat journey itself was wonderful. We were given a completely different perspective of the city and its unique skyline. It’s quite incredible to think that on one side was the continent of Europe and on the other, Asia, both shores almost within touching distance of each other.
The boat took a tranquil pace past historic landmarks such as the Dolmabahçe Palace, Ottoman-era mansions, and under modern bridges that connect the two continents. The thing that immediately struck me was the amount of wealth there was in Istanbul, not only wealth from the great Ottoman empire, but new wealth as indicated by the construction of new high rise buildings everywhere and in the lavish mansions located on the hills overlooking the strait. This was even more apparent as we reached the area of Galataseray in the Beyoglu district, home to Istanbul’s most famous football team.
We arrived back at the harbour in the late afternoon feeling relaxed and refreshed. The Bosphorus cruises run into the evening, and I’d read that the sunset cruise is definitely worth doing.
The walk back to Sultanahmet was much more pleasant, taking us up through the busy commercial district. The architecture of the city is eclectic but take a look at the Post Office building!
It was a bit of a hike back to Sultanahmet. Istanbul is built on seven hills, and it would be impossible not to encounter an incline or two during our stay. This made use of the public transport even more imperative. We’d only purchased one travel card, initially thinking we could both use the same card. For ease of use we decided to buy another one and we stopped at one along the way back to the hotel. Unfortunately, this experience didn’t go too well.
Here we encountered our second scam of our visit – and it’s only day 2! At this particular tram stop, two machines are very close to each other side by side. Peter began the process of purchasing the ticket and as others queued to buy tickets I stepped back to make space. For some reason, the machine wasn’t accepting payment with Peter’s card. A man next to him began to ‘help’ him. A queue behind him began to form but then I noticed that the other machine was now free and none of them were using it. Three other men had now surrounded Peter and something just didn’t feel right. It was all over so quickly and at this point, I still didn’t know what had happened but here is another scam alert that we need to highlight.
The so-called ‘help’ did indeed enable Peter to purchase an Istanbulkart and it was topped up accordingly with the amount he wanted. Somehow, the man had also managed to top up another Istanbulkart with over 1000TL of Peter’s money, which he discovered after checking his bank statement immediately after.
This really did put a dampener on the day, and Peter by now was pretty hacked off with Istanbul. If you’ve even been scammed or robbed (yes me), you’ll understand that feeling of anger – mainly at your own naivety. Peter immediately turned off contactless payments on his card. Another lesson learned for both of us. Anyway, here are the people involved. Nothing to identify them very well but may they rot in hell.
Later that evening, we decided to eat away from the main tourist trail and headed down towards the commercial district again. The choice was vast, and we were bombarded with people trying to pull us into their restaurants. Worn down by our earlier experience, we plumped for one on the main street. As we perused the menu, I noticed that there wasn’t anything written regarding the price of alcoholic drinks, despite the man at the door telling us they sold “beer, wine, whatever you like to drink” (and boy did we need a drink!) I asked the waiter for a drinks menu and he pointed me to the list of soft drinks. I told him there were no prices for the wine and beer. He told me it’s because it was forbidden. By now, our ‘bullshit detectors’ were on high alert. Peter and I looked at each other and instinctively got up and left.
We were starving and needed to eat, but just a bit further along was a restaurant called Red River Pub. There was nobody at the door trying to get us in, and the menu outside had everything listed, including the price of alcoholic drinks. This is where we decided to eat. We took a table outside just off the main street, and we had a very pleasant meal indeed. The waiters were attentive but not overly so, and we felt that we had a very good value meal – still touristic prices but the Yeni raki was 250TL and not the 2500TL as at the Basilica Restaurant and Cafe the evening before.
When you Google Istanbul you will come across many scam warnings about the city. We’re averaging 1.5 a day so far. Let’s see if we can manage without one tomorrow!
