The Horn

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005 lgv091 2014-12-07 turkey istanbul eminonu uskudar ferry mosquesFerry to Uskudar, The Golden Horn, Istanbul. December 2015

I had melancholy thoughts … a strangeness in my mind, a feeling that I was not for that hour, nor for that place.

Orhun Pamuk

There is a rawness, a base level of emotion along the shores of the Golden Horn, in what was called Beyoglu. In the ten years since I was here last, much has changed (new trams and high end shopping), but much has stayed the same. The smells – of raw sewage and of deep fried fish. The sing song chorus of pomegranate juicers and simik salesmen.

It’s always men, and always old men selling simik. They are of this place, and always have been.

Sokak

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017 lgv090 2014-12-06 turkey istanbul fatih neighbourhoods 1Neviye Sokak, Fatih (Eminonu), Istanbul. December 2014

In Arabic, sokak means market street. The word souk, in most of the Mediterranean world comes form this, and refers to the market streets, usually in the Medina. Of course definitions, especially in Istanbul where Arabic is not spoken widely, are fluid, adaptable. In this case, sokak means, merely, lane.

It’s on this very plain, in this very – let’s label it gently – “working class” neighbourhood that we found our apartment rental.

When you book with AirBnB, you sometimes take your chances. We were budget travellers, still only in our fourth month out of ten on the road, so we took a chance. On the whole, it worked out well for us. The location was fabulous, in the middle of the neighbourhood that I knew as Eminonu when I was last here in 2004. The Grand Bazaar, Sultanahmet, Topkapi… the new tram system were all just minutes walk from here. We could have sought out a more glamorous location, but then I couldn’t have gotten a shave for 5 bucks, fresher seafood than from the Kumkapi market, or been able to walk home in five minutes from the Kadirga Hamami.

Sketchy from far, perfectly safe from within; we stayed two weeks with no trouble at all.