Blue Mosque, Istanbul

My first attempt to get to Istanbul was my first trip abroad, as an improverished student

with what turned out to be a thoroughly unreliably motorbike. Broke down twice in France,

and again - finally, and when the money ran out - near the Austrian border. The few days

a friend and I had in Istanbul a couple of years later were nowhere near enough; but nor

was a ten-day visit four decades later with the Mrs., when the city was heaving with

tourists at about the time of some large-scale student riots in the Taksim Square area.

Gone were the bits of Roman ruins scattered about the boulevards of the city that I'd

remembered from the late 1960s, gone the dangerous-looking ferries across to the Asia

side of the Bosphorus, and gone the slightly seedy, dodgy atmosphere of the fabled city,

nexus of much European history. Given over to the tourism trade.

The Blue Mosque now nestles in a pedestrianised precinct to one side of what used to be

the old Roman charioteer race-track; you have to queue to get in and you can't just

wander round it at will any more. Most of Aya Sofia was cordened off for restoration work

(and the Naval Museum closed for the same reason), but for compensation, other sites

were now available, like the underground Palace water system, complete with fish and

Roman statuary, and the beautiful mosaic museum. Still a treasure, then.

My first attempt to get to Istanbul was my first trip abroad, as an improverished student with

what turned out to be a thoroughly unreliably motorbike. Broke down twice in France, and again

- finally, and when the money ran out - near the Austrian border. The few days a friend and I

had in Istanbul a couple of years later were nowhere near enough; but nor was a ten-day visit

four decades later with the Mrs., when the city was heaving with tourists at about the time of

some large-scale student riots in the Taksim Square area. Gone were the bits of Roman ruins

scattered about the boulevards of the city that I'd remembered from the late 1960s, gone the

dangerous-looking ferries across to the Asia side of the Bosphorus, and gone the slightly seedy,

dodgy atmosphere of the fabled city, nexus of much European history. Given over to the

tourism trade.

The Blue Mosque now nestles in a pedestrianised precinct to one side of what used to be the old

Roman charioteer race-track; you have to queue to get in and you can't just wander round it at

will any more. Most of Aya Sofia was cordened off for restoration work (and the Naval

Museum closed for the same reason), but for compensation, other sites were now available, like

the underground Palace water system, complete with fish and Roman statuary, and the

beautiful mosaic museum. Still a treasure, then.