Readers will have to take as given that every time we go out in Istanbul we see tombs, mosques, Ottoman houses in various states of repair and beautiful fountains, as well as glorious views from the hill tops down to and across the water. Every step opens up a new vista and a set of angles that scream to be noted and remembered. Today was memorable for the distance we walked and the different districts we wandered through. Our goals of two churches and a museum church were scattered far and wide, but if things are on the map, they always seem walkable to us.
We started by walking along the waterfront, where a boatload of divers was dragging up a basket full of mussels. Mussels are sold by street vendors with slices of lemon and often a rice filling. Next we nearly trod on a snoozing sunbaker in his bathers, for whom the lack of a beach or any sand at all only meant that the path must be the place for it.
Some older people (actually about our age, but it is always a shock to realise it) half-heartedly strode on the exercise equipment that was there for all in the park. A serious fishing industry was operating with boats moored or moving around some piers. A shoe seller called door to door, manoeuvring seemingly a whole shop full on a barrow. Another barrow rushed by full of baskets of eggs. The short line on the map had moved or grown.
At last we doubled back and came to the Armenian Church, Meryem Ana, or The Virgin Mary. We passed through a gate into a courtyard which was busy with church helpers but empty of clergy. It was only about 11 a.m. but a man who had arranged to see the priest was told that he would have to wait, since the priest was eating. A secretary told us that we could go into the church. Inside it was a grand church in white with gold trim. A dazzling chandelier hung above the rich carpet and chairs were arranged on each side in rows for the congregation. The area behind the altar was gold and very ornate. There were crosses everywhere. It had a gate and fence which separated the part at the back where there were some tombs and special alcoves from the main body of the church. It looked and felt very unmosque-like and we were struck by how strong architecture is in conveying an impression and a message.
We looked around outside and had a few friendly words with the gardener, who encouraged us to look down the side where he had planted vegetables all the way along. It seemed like its own world of affairs inside the wall, with plenty of volunteers busy with church tasks. Across the road there is a building which is the Seat of the Armenian Patriarchs, and as such a sensitive building. Keith was taking a photo of a cat and wasn’t even pointing towards the place when a policeman rushed out of his box and told us that we couldn’t take photos. We wished that we could have found an English speaking Armenian Istanbullian who could have explained to us how things are for them these days. Instead we met two boys who asked me the time in Turkish and I answered in Turkish before I stopped to translate the question. This was a miracle since our language progress is very slow.We soon found ourselves in an intense modern commercial area where hundreds of fashionable western style clothes were on display. It was all very busy, busy, busy, with cars zipping around, mobile phones being listened to, computer shops abounding and even a lycra gym wear shop. We had gone from one side of the tracks to the other in the crossing of a road. Just to spice up our church day, we called to see two mosques. The first, highly recommended and supposed to be fantastic, was fully wrapped up for restorations, with a picture of itself on the front. The second, the Laleyli Mosque, was a pretty medium-sized mosque which showed promise, but it was closed for prayers. We consulted the map and saw that, with only another diversion of about three kilometres, we could see the city walls.
It was a long three kilometres so we broke it up with lunch in a not very salubrious park. Unlicensed vendors arrived, setting up their t-shirts, jackets and jocks, socks and singlets on tarpaulins within a few metres of where we sat. Every now and then there would be a quick gathering up of the stock and a scuttle to behind the bushes. Four minutes later two policemen would walk by. This happened in the middle of a sale and the man trying on a jacket had to race off to the bushes too. He eventually bought one after trying two more sizes on and flexing his arms to check for length, all the time sticking out of a shrub.
The road we were on was wide and busy and had little charm. The city walls seemed to be moving and we were checking the map when a policeman popped out of nowhere (actually the door of the police station but we didn’t know it) and was pleased to help us. He suggested a quicker way to the museum, but now we were set on seeing the walls, so he gave us directions. It wasn’t too far and we had the entertainment of looking at the enormous self-promotion posters that the local council had put on a long building site. One of the messages was all about urban renewal, and showed falling down slum houses in the ‘before’ shot and new homes in the ‘after’ one. We didn’t realise how relevant that was until we rounded the corner and came hard up against the city walls. Walking beside them, we almost immediately left the world of ‘after’ and were firmly in the decay and deterioration of the ‘before’ shot slum housing. 
It looked as though more than a hundred years ago shanty style houses were knocked up with any materials at hand, and then a second level was added, fell down, was patched up and added to. Whole areas looked as if bombs had gone off. 
Children were playing in the rubble and people sat in doorways or peeped out of windows which lacked glass and sometimes surrounds. An armchair looked bizarre set up high on an abandoned roof, but in good condition and maybe sat in sometimes. 
We searched in vain for the church that our map showed but it corresponded with a massive pile of rubble and the beginning of collected piles of marble, which continued up the hill. 
An arch in the wall held a man’s home – a couch and a few bags – and the man himself. 
A gap in the wall revealed us to dirty children who called after us for money. The walls themselves were in a precarious state at this point, with rubbishy grass on the side with the houses, and parklands on the other.Abruptly we were back in the ‘after’ shot and passing neat mosques and crossing a major road. The walls had been restored and had steps to the top, but the entry gate was closed. We reached the Church of the Holy Saviour Outside the Walls, built in the 11th Century, which is now the Kariye museum. The mosaics, dating from 1312, are similar to those in Aya Sofya, with sparkling gold backgrounds and tiny pieces. They are so fine that I had to look really carefully to check that the faces of Jesus and Mary were not painted on in the one in which they are receiving donations. The whole church is full of mosaics and they are in very good condition. Many bible stories are portrayed but also there are unusual pieces, like the four writers of hymns and letters who are there with their pens and trailing papers, and portrayals of the benefactor’s family members. The benefactor, Theodore Metochites, was a poet and man of letters, as well as being auditor of Emperor Andronikos II’s treasury. The outside of the church is striped layers of bricks, with many domes in it, giving it a bobbly bath house effect. It was interesting and different, but thronging with tours and we required a mid-way sit on the grass before we continued.
Out circumnavigation of the suburbs now led us to a completely different area, which was almost village, like with a small square and streets running off it. Women were sitting out crocheting scarf edges and everyone seemed to be dressed more like those in areas further east and certainly not with cosmopolitan Istanbul abandon. We walked over to a tiny icecream shop – a little room with two chai tables in it and three flavours of icecream on offer, and were ushered in and fussed over by the people already there. It was as if we had stepped into another time or another place, where the truck load of garlic parked by the fountain would be bought by locals, the scarf edges would be added to the scarves that every woman would wear and strangers were of interest.
Further on, the streets started to lead down to the Golden Horn, with the houses changing suddenly to more elaborate and better kept ones, with decorative external touches. We had read that Unesco had given money for a restoration project for an area which still had fairly original Istanbul street scapes in good order. A sign told us that this was it. We were pretty tired by now and keen to make it to St Stephen’s church before closing time, but I could not resist the steep climb up the narrow cobblestoned street to the massive red brick castle at the top. On the way up we saw some children, obviously thought to be safely inside at home, attempting to escape through the window bars and join their friends on the street. They were thwarted so played in the 15 centimetre space between the glass and the bars, reaching things in and out to their friends. Another pair of young children rang each other on toy phones and two young women chatted across the narrow street from window to doorway. The castle was a grandiose school, originally teaching in French and now a private college. The doors were firmly locked and no friendly students or teachers appeared to let us in.The walls had somehow reappeared and so we had to go the wrong way before we could escape and walk back. The Church of St Stephen is a beautiful Bulgarian Orthodox church, set right near the water of the Golden Horn, in its own walled garden, within the public park. It looks like a tiny cathedral and is made of iron, coming as a prefabricated building from Vienna in 1898. It was the perfect reward for the end of a long and rambly day and we would have been happy to look from the outside had we not seen that there were people in the garden. It was close to five o’clock and the caretaker’s family were there, ready to go home with him. Another tourist was leaving, occupying the caretaker, so his elder son, perhaps ten years old, ushered us in. The interior is all painted metal, with many areas now becoming rusted as the paint disappears. Keith was exploring alone but my little guide was most attentive, making sure that I saw everything and that I understood that Jesus was Mary’s son. The area at the front of the church was rich with gilt carving and gentle-featured icons. All the while my guide was indicating things, having said that he spoke English, and doing a wonderful job in communicating without it, and bowing and waving me through. Afterwards we made a donation to the church and gave a little koala to the boy and his little brother.
This end of the Golden Horn is lined with shady parks, where families cook little barbecues, where men gather in groups to talk or drink, where children run free, where stage hands set up for a big concert with the performers to be on a stage in the water, and where tired tourists can have a rest and a snack before taking the ferry back to Eminönu. We saw the old Galata Bridge which is a bit of an eye sore, and is no longer in use. In its original position it didn’t allow for the water to flow out readily, causing the Golden Horn to have a bad pollution problem. The new bridge was built to allow more flushing out. Hopefully they are asking what is causing the pollution too, since it looked pretty sludgy, and we trust that the boys swimming in it have excellent immune systems.The seats were all taken around the fountain near Aya Sofya so we relaxed and ate on the grass. During the day thousands of seedlings had been planted in the flower beds, with many crates left on the grass to complete the job tomorrow. I watched a gardener stow his rake in a neatly pruned dense shrub, the changing of the guard for the corn seller’s stand, three generations of a family with the clothing differences that that entailed, and tourists, tourists, tourists – obvious again after a day of being mostly alone with Istanbul’s very varied population.
In the Istanbul suburbs
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