Üsküdar for beginners (4): historic hamam, historic restaurant
Most tourists in Istanbul take a hotel either in Sultanahmet or in Beyoglu, and those who want to visit a hamam don’t know which luxury one close to their hotel to go to. If you want my advice, take a boat to Üsküdar and go to Çinili Hamam. Not luxurious, but clean, frequented by locals not by tourists, so just …
My love is working in a big carpet shop as a salesman, and how interesting it is to get an insight into how it works there. Well, for the customer it’s not always so funny, but then again, he’s not always aware of what’s going on. Take for example a customer called Robert Boş. It’s an imaginary name for a …
Üsküdar for beginners (3): market and second-hand stuff
The problem with tourists is that they often want to ‘go somewhere’, whereas I usually prefer just to wander around in the streets. But actually, in Üsküdar you can get stuck on busy streets, not knowing where to turn left or right to find somewhere nice. So I’ll direct you to somewhere specific, where you can just wander around: the …
Üsküdar for beginners (2): Şakirin Mosque
Since last month, Üsküdar has had a brand new masterpiece of architecture. It’s a mosque, but not just any mosque: the Şakirin Camii is designed by a woman and is the most modern, light, open and female-friendly mosque I have ever seen. It’s an absolute must-see, as is the big, huge, immense graveyard that surrounds it….
Üsküdar for beginners (1): Kuzguncuk
The tourist season has started, and I always giggle a bit when I see them coming off the boat in my part of town, Üsküdar. They stand there with their travel guide in their hands, looking puzzled at the traffic jam and at the construction works going on for Marmaray, the tube under the Bosporus that is going to connect …
That I would ever come to love Harem bus station (the biggest bus station on the Anatolian side of İstanbul) is sort of a miracle. The first time I was there – on the way to cover this story – I was totally overwhelmed by the shouting of the guys trying to sell tickets, the people sitting …
So what do you do when you’re a small business man in a Turkish village, you’re not an AKP supporter, but the AKP candidate seems to be winning in your village and you need some favours concerning your business after the elections? Then you don’t support the AKP openly, because that would go too much against your principles, but you …
So off I went, to the Turkish Airlines crisis centre near Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport. Twittering some names from the passenger list that I heard on the radio while crossing the Bosporus Bridge in a taxi, and calling the news agency to tell them I had heard some Dutch names mentioned on the list that they didn’t yet have. Of course …
The audience went quite silent when the Turkish-Dutch literary translator answered the question: “Which Turkish book do you like the most?”. She replied: “That would have to be Istanbul, by Orhan Pamuk.” It turned out a majority of the audience of about thirty people had started to read Istanbul but only two had made it all the way …
For an average Dutch person like me, the (first) bridge over the Bosporus is just a bit too much at night. Too many lights in too many colous with too much flickering. On just any night you can see the bridge being yellow, green, red, blue and purple, in any order, and at the same time the coloums …
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