People have been living in the area of Istanbul for thousands of years. Recently, the construction of the metro tunnel under the Bosporus revealed an archaeological find that showed a group of people settled the area before the Bosporus was formed. This pushed back the previously established dates of the area. The area's formal history is set at around the 7th century BC when it went by Byzantium. Later, in 324, Constantine defeated Licinius and became the ruler of the Roman Empire. He renamed the city Constantinople and set about Christianizing the city. There are still elements of the old city around and at the edge of this part of the city is the Spice Bazaar. It's loaded with any kind of food stuffs you can imagine. We had an hour to kill waiting on our boat for the Bosporus cruise, so our guide, our good friend Alev's uncle, took us to visit the market.
There we found any kind of spice we could ever want to cook with. Another popular find is the Turkish teas. If you've never had a small glass cup of Turkish tea, you don't know what you are missing. It's great and comes in a variety of tasty flavors.
Around 1:30, we caught a boat to ride up the Bosporus to the Black Sea. The Bosporus has been a strategic body of water as long as its existed. Some geologists contend that it was formed almost 7000 years ago when the waters of the Mediterranean rose high enough to connect with the Black Sea. It has been a crucial shipping lane to connect the lands around the Black Sea with the rest of the world. The Greeks always allied themselves with whomever controlled it and the Ottomans were ruthless about controlling. In fact, the Black Sea was dubbed an Ottoman lake at one point.
For us, one of the most interesting things that our friend's uncle told us about Turkey was the change in the language. Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish state, set about reforming the Turkish language to break from the influence of Persian and Arabic. He had old words removed and newer words based in Turkish added. It's ironic that he still spoke the old style of Turkish. He also had the Turkish Language Association establish a Latin alphabet instead of using Arabic script as a sign that Turkey was breaking with its Islamic past and moving to the Western world. Literacy rates jumped from 20% to 90% with the reform.
Pictured below is where the Bosporus meets the Black Sea. We got off at the last stop and had lunch on the Asian side of Istanbul. Later, we caught the ferry back to visit Taksim Square.
Taksim Square is one of the most famous places in Istanbul. It's not only a transportation hub but its got an incredibly long pedestrian shopping street. Behind us is a monument dedicated to the establishment of the Turkish Republic. Tons of people crowd the streets to shop, eat, and take a leisurely stroll through one of the cities best walking areas.
Along the pedestrian street of Taksim Square is the St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church. It was built in 1906 after the original was destroyed. The masses are given in Italian.
Another famous site along the pedestrian streets are these ice cream vendors. They spend their time pulling tricks and playing with ice cream. Our friend told us it has the consistency of gum and isn't worth eating but it sure does provide entertainment. These guys can stick the ice cream to a cone and twirl it, spin it, and switch cones on you as part of their gag. Here is one guy playing some tricks on one girl.
We had a nice dinner and headed on back to our hotel where we battled with crappy internet to try and post some pictures and chat with some people. We gave up after a while and called it a night.
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