Text 4956, 138 rader
Skriven 2010-12-14 17:39:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 883
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Topkapi area
Day 1

Woke up to heavy rain, and it rained steadily through the
day. We tried to be out and about during the lulls and be
indoors when it was more downpourish. Mixed success.

As the museums weren't open until 10 (said all the
literature), we slid our way up and down the cobbled streets
and eventually found a little place near the train station
for breakfast. I had cake (rather coarse but good, soaked in
a not too sweet syrup); Lilli had what was characterized as
an omelet - essentially eggs beaten with lots of butter and
cooked over a very quick fire until quite hard, but not bad
for that; with three teas, TL10. This was the cheapest meal
we had in a country of surprisingly costly food.

Our first stop was the archeological museum, which contains
an astonishing plenitude of stuff. One starts at the Museum
of the Ancient Orient, with amazing stuff, then to the
archeological museum per se. We stopped on the way at the
Tile Pavilion, which used to be one of the satellite
buildings of the Topkapi Palace but was ceded to the control
of the archeological museum in a rare triumph of logic over
territoriality. It contains a beautiful selection of Islamic
ceramic tiles and decorative art and is well worth the trip,
especially given that it doesn't cost any extra.

Then on to the main museum itself - enormous, overwhelming,
worth several visits for the antiquities hound, just plain
too much for the rest of us. There are displays dedicated
to all the major Fertile Crescent civilizations, each
containing hundreds of artifacts; to the history and
cultures of Istanbul; to Troy and Ephesus; and the main
floor has hundreds of Greek and Roman sculptures, dozens
of sarcophagi (and a mummy), scores of orthostats (that
word again). Just amazing.

We had to tear ourselves away, encouraged by an alarm that
had been ringing at the end of the Roman sculpture rooms
but was audible for hundreds of feet ... it was there when
we arrived and there when we left three-odd hours later.

And we'd budgeted the afternoon for the Topkapi Palace.
I wasn't thrilled by the palace itself: it was big, it had
nice stuff, but it really looked to me like an extra nice
hidey-hole for hundreds of bureaucrats or something.

The hall that contained relics of various prophets was to
me the most interesting part: we got to see the original
Sword of Ali, Muhammad's footprints and beard (trimmings
thereof, divided into many lockets), Moses' cooking
vessel, ...

It was lunchtime, so we headed for the restaurant and its
supposedly elegant food and dazzling vistas. Well, as far
as the vistas go, the Bosporus was totally fogged in, and
the rains were coming in almost horizontal. We got seated
by a heat lamp, which helped a bit. I guess we could have
gone to the cafeteria on the other side, but we figured
we'd get better service, food, and shelter here, given
that we'd be paying between twice and 3x the price.

Service was alternately willing and sort of bumbling
and totally absent.

The menu listed steak at L42, entrecote at L43; Lilli asked
the difference - a waiter, not versed in such distinctions,
replied "steak is ... steak; entrecote is ... is ... ...
same." Steak turned out to be a nice-size but rather thin
cut of rump; entrecote, true to its name, was a rib steak,
kind of fatty. One didn't get a choice of doneness - both
came medium, but the quality of the meat was good enough
that medium wasn't bad. These came with terrific heavily
smoked baba ghannouj, delicious meat rice with currants,
and an odd mishmosh of carrots, zucchini, and peas (on
the menu as "boiled vegetables").

The wind howled louder and louder, and our umbrellas shook,
and suddenly one of the many waiters danced by with a
pashmina for Lilli's shoulders. As I started reflecting on
reverse discrimination, someone gave me one, too.

The prices for wine looked absurd, so we had a bottle of
water for 5 bucks or so.

There was another lull in the weather, it seemed, so we
paid the bill and headed back for the palace proper.

While we looked for restrooms we discovered that the
restaurant has an indoor part! This was crowded, noisy,
stuffy, and objectionable in the mirror way from the
way our setting had been objectionable. We figured, eh,
six of one, half a dozen of the other; but I was slightly
irked that we hadn't been given the option.

Topkapi palace in the rain isn't so much of a must-visit.
We spent more time shivering than seeing, and the enormous
crowd in the treasury was actually more welcome for its
generated heat than annoying for its jostling, shoving
jam-packedness. Some neat stuff here, gifts and tributes
to the sultans from rulers from Queen Victoria to the
various shahs of Iran, and millions' worth of other shiny
things. Okay, it was well more than neat if you're into
shiny things, as the rest of the hundreds of people in
each room jostling for position or just a glimpse of the
shinier treasures must have been. And, oh, there was the
giant diamond about which they apparently had made a movie
some decades back.

After a bit of thought we gave the harem a miss (as it
were); others and their writings indicate that we made the
right choice.

Having nearly frozen our butts off, we went back early to
the Sultanahmet Suites, tried (somewhat vainly) to dry off,
and then walked around that conservative old neighborhood,
trying to find a place that sold beer. There was a little
store a couple blocks up the way, where the guy sort of
scowled at us alcohol-swilling infidels, but a big smile and
a heartfelt tesikkurler got us a bit of a nod in return. It
was Marmara beer, and I thought, aha, the guide who told us
that it was all Efes was wrong. Turns out this stuff is made
by Efes, though I found it a tad maltier perhaps. We returned
to one of the places that hadn't sold alcohol, got some
potato chips and nuts and deemed that a sufficient meal.

We had use of the building's computer for our e-mail and such,
and while I was tapping away, I was approached haltingly
by the guy who had checked us in, who informed me that
because of a miscalculation of the exchange rates, he had
undercharged me. How much, I asked. US$10, he replied, I
didn't fuss that it had been his mistake or accuse him of
shaking me down. He had indeed given me a good rate before,
and with the correction it was still quite fair. So I paid.
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