Istanbul - "How can I help you? How can I take your money?"

City of some 15 million people and approximately 15 trillion cats.

A whole city that smells of barbecue - fatty lamb sizzling over hot coals.

Fishing from the Galata Bridge.

On our first day in Istanbul, after meandering through the old city, we walked from the Galata Bridge, around the Kennedy Caddesi coastline. Fishermen lined the rocky shoreline the whole way along, with hundreds of cats for company. Out from the coast the water was crowded with fishing boats. Passing behind them were ferries and tankers heading up river, and out to sea further hundreds of container ships. Part way along we stopped to watch two men in full dive gear haul in a couple of huge rope lengths of mussels. Another four guys were working at pulling the mussels off into buckets and tipping them into huge sacks (which were stacking up in the full sun). The combination of huge boats in the harbour, sun, and those clever heavy-metal filtering molluscs did not make for an appetising picture. Watching (and smelling) the fishermen wasn't much better. Further on around the coast we came to the fish markets, which are surrounded by seafood restaurants, and I'm sure there must be some good places to eat fish in Istanbul but I wasn't keen. The only time we did see mussels for sale was at a pier-side stall when we got off the ferry and there was a guy with a little stall of mussels (which looked closed) and lemon wedges. On our last night we watched a TV episode of Anthony Bourdain in Istanbul in which he explained the illegality of seeling mussels here, precisely because of the pollution. But of course he ate a whole lot of them, at a stall such like the one we had seen, where the mussels had been cooked and stuffed and then had their shells stuck back together. Can't say he managed to make them look any more delicious.

View from our hotel roof terrace and conservatory.

Our hotel breakfast though, that was delicious.

For me - thick creamy yoghurt with fresh pomegranate jewels, dried white mulberries and figs, and a few rolled oats for good measure. Toast with sour cherry or rose jam (like eating Turkish delight spread on your bread) and terrible coffee (not Turkish).

Finn had potatoes fried with a little sausage, scrambled eggs, potato borek, feta-ish cheese and dill mix, green olives, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, and a super-sesame bagel with cream cheese, oh and some sort of a cold sliced pink tube meat. Followed by brownie and a spicy sesame biscuit with a second cup of terrible coffee.

Lots of food in Istanbul was delicious.

Walnut baklava.

Pistachio baklava.

Hazelnut baklava.

All with syrup-soaked sticky bottoms, chewy nutty muddles, and crispy crunchy tops.

All delicious.

Fresh dates.

Deep fried syrup-soaked churros-type doughnuts.

Freshly squeezed pomegranate juice - oh my allah, delicious.

Honey-syrup soaked almond semolina cake, dipped in shredded coconut and handed over in a square of newsprint. Awesome.

Oh, and Turkish delight.

Maize on the cob. Mm mm, salty, chewy, and corny.

Pure pomegranate.
Intense.

Following the recommendation of a Guardian reviewer, one evening we headed over to Itfaiye Cadessi to find a restaurant specialising in lamb cooked over coals in a hole in the ground, and pilaf in pastry. It was a Friday night but most of the restaurants lining the street seemed fairly empty, so, unable to match the name we had written down to any of the likely-looking establishments, we took a punt instead on the only bustling place. It was a winner. They had the pilaf in a pastry shell, which I ordered, and the pit lamb, but Finn ordered a kofte meal instead. They came out with a plate of various salads and plenty of bread. It was all so delicious. The rice was oily and nutty and chickeny-rich, to which the salads were a perfect match, the acidity cutting right through. One of the things I love about salads here is the quantity of parsley. Really it should be called Turkish parsley, not Italian parsley. Here it is really used as an ingredient, there just as a garnish. Finn's plate had meat, roast tomatoes, grilled jalapeno peppers, and a spicy barley-type concoction.Yum yum yum yum. On the wall by our table there was a big article about Bourdain's visit there, which is what made us think to look up his programme. 

The next night we headed back to the same street, feeling compelled to find the Guardian place. And we did. But it was much less fun. Better to just follow our noses. 

Yes, as well as eat we did also see some sights.

Domes and lighting wires inside the Blue Mosque.

Wash block outside the Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia.

Sideways Medusa in the city cistern.

And we went over to Istanbul Modern on the other side of the Galata, and explored a bit around there, and took a ferry ride to test our toes on the Asian continent and drink a glass of mouth puckeringly delicious freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice. And we did some successful (ie. both sides come out feeling pleased with themselves) bargaining around the edges of the Grand Bazaar. All up, Istanbul was wonderful fun. Cheap and choice, compared with other stops on this trip.

View from our hotel's front door.

Istanbul has, at a guess, upwards of 90% retail coverage at ground level, and above, and below. Streets and streets and streets and streets of shops + roadside stalls + malls through all the subway underpasses + the bazaars + street sellers. The touristy areas are a constant cry of people trying to sell you something, anything, to get a piece of your cash. But one street back and it's supply shops and repair outlets and retail not aimed at the foreign market so you're left quietly alone. 

Otherwise it's like the title quotes. And also - "Where are you from, Germany?" No.

                                                                      "Netherlands?" No.

                                                                      "Bangladesh! Ha ha ha ha ha..."

Italian was the most common assumption, hilariously. Then Spanish. And once, Icelandic. Crazy.

On the way to the airpot there was a cat riding our train. Curled up on a warm seat on a cold day. Riding backwards and forwards between the city and the airport. It had it good and it wasn't going to budge for anyone. Three men in business suits spent some good time cooing over it. The cats in Istanbul are well looked after. They are slinky and chic, clean and well-fed looking, some are super friendly. And they are in millions and millions of travellers holiday snapshots. But not ours.

12 January 2012

New Years in Berlin / A city under fire

Who knew Italians were so hostile?

Somehow we'd grown so accustomed to mean-faces these last 7 months, and it took a trip to Berlin to remind us what it's like to be around friendly people (funny especially considering Berliners have quite a reputation for being nasty). Our notions of nasty and nice must've gotten all off kilter.

(To be clear, I'm just talking about perfect strangers here.)

But really, from the moment we landed in Dusseldorf (a transit point between Rome and Berlin), strangers made eye contact and smiled at us and said hello. At first it made me feel all queer inside, like something was just a little bit wrong, I couldn't quite figure it out. Then it happened more and more - passing people in the courtyard of our apartment complex, passing people on the street, going into cafes and shops - people are so friendly! It's been a bit of a revelation.

(There are so many Italians here though - there's no escape!)

The day of the morning that it snowed.

Berlin was fun.
The area between where we were staying and the central city was full of really nice cafes and excellent secondhand stores. On our first day we went shopping and even Finn had fun! Berlin has a vibrant urban culture, full of people doing creative things in aesthetically pleasing spaces. It felt new and exciting, as well as like something we used to be familiar with, compared to the settings of our last months. With little of the pre-war cityscape remaining, wandering the streets here was a pleasure of a very different sort from that in Italy. Finn quickly decided he could live there, a feeling he hadn't had anywhere else on this trip. But he also wondered if it was just because it felt so much more normal, and really, Wellington will do just fine.
We'll see.

Sausages!
Fun once, but really quite gross. I felt a bit off for the rest of the day afterwards.

Less nice was the approach to fire crackers on New Years eve.

Boy oh boy, they sell some mean-arse bangers in this place. Remember those little red bangers you used to be able to buy in NZ? Well here they sell GIANT versions of those - say 3cm diameter and 15cm long. As well as many other crazy crackers (ones that you shoot from pistols and that sound like gunfire, littering the ground with metal 'bullet casings', for example).

From the day we arrived, afternoons, evenings, and especially nights were punctuated with explosions. Then New Years Eve was absolute madness, building in the afternoon to a deafening crescendo at midnight. From the moment it started getting dark until we fell asleep sometime after 2am, there was not a single moment when you couldn't here the explosion of a fire cracker.

Fire works, on the other hand, are not so popular. We did eventually see some, at about dinner time on New Years eve someone finally opted for some visuals with their bangs. (Dinner of roast pheasant, I should mention, stuffed with an almond, prune, lemon, pancetta, onion, garlic, bread mix, and accompanied by roast potatoes, buttery brussel sprouts, and rocket salad. A delicious feast to see the old year out.)

Anticipating a big public fireworks display from the Brandenburg Gate at midnight, after late dinner we set off for a wander in that direction. The streets were a madhouse. I had thought it was quite crazy how many fire crackers were going off, considering how cold it was outside. People must be really committed, I thought. Well, only sought of. As we walked along, we had to be constantly on the lookout for burning projectiles being thrown out of apartment windows. As we went deeper into the city centre, and the streets became more and more crowded with people, nowhere was safe. People were letting off huge crackers right under their own feet, right under their children's feet, and throwing them at their friends, or anyone walking by. By the time it struck midnight, we had got pretty close to the Gate, but not close enough to see it. We had anticipated this and figured it wouldn't matter, if it really was as big a show as promised - rivalling NY and London, apparently - then we should just be able to look up and see it. But no. And neither could we tell if we could even hear it, so SO loud was the cacophony of domestic explosions all around us. It was deafening, it seemed like the crackers people were setting off were massively loud, close to if not as loud as the public displays we've seen.

We continued further in, thinking the public display would last a while, but no, wrong again. By 12:10 the crowds were pushing against us, heading back out away from the Gate, it was all over. 10 minutes! It really didn't matter though, the experience simply of walking the streets at this time had been such a mad experience for us, probably (hopefully) the closest we'll ever get to a war zone. It was really really scary.

After New Years the bangs died down considerably. Phew.

As well as fire crackers, Berlin is a city of excellent art galleries. Not always the best exhibitions, but really great galleries.

Bauhaus.

The Bauhaus archives and museum turned out to be really more archives than museum. Interesting building (from the outside), but without access to much of it from the inside, so difficult to get a sense of it providing interesting spaces. The museum was full of big promises and declarations (such as the Bauhaus being the most important art movement of the 20th century), but very weak on displays.

Museum island - rennovated old buildings, beautiful exhibition spaces, perfectly lit. We'd already had our fill of Roman artefacts this trip though, so we just went to a couple.

Garden of Exile, Jewish Museum. 

Jewish museum - amazing new building, full of architectural metaphors and interesting spaces, but awful display design. Downstairs in the personal stories section (which could've been interesting, as with all of it), they had such small viewing spaces to see the objects and read the stories, you pretty much had to press your face against the glass to read the plaque, and with the number of visitors in there trying to see each one, it was terrible. And there was ample space available, if they'd wanted to make it better. Finn was convinced it was about really connecting to each story, but I felt so distracted by the procedure of simply trying to be able to read the story that all chances of there being some kind of meaningful connection were lost in the jostle for viewing vantage point.

Upstairs, the permanent collection was so heavy on interaction I quickly felt worn down. I think I was the wrong type of person for the displays in this museum, although I had really been looking forward to the visit. Maybe my expectations had been to high. Maybe I should give them more credit for trying to make Jewish history fun.

Tomas Saraceno's Cloud Cities.
Hamburger Bahnhof.

Hamburger Bahnhof is a super fantastic gallery of modern and contemporary art. The temporary exhibitions were excellent, both the Cloud Cities pictured above and works exhibited in their extensive western wing. The permanent collection throughout the rest of the building was not so amazing.

And many more. We filled three, kind of four days with galleries. That got us inside and around a lot of really nice buildings.

Berlin wall memorial.

Roman Finn by a nice piece of wall.

My wonderful proof reader thinks this is the most negative and peculiar posting of Flesh yet. I don't quite know how or why that can be. Berlin was certainly very different from all the places and themes of the previous posts, but by no means in a bad way. Quite the contrary, we had a lot of fun, saw some great shit, bought some nice things, and survived a terrifying new years unscathed. We did very well indeed.

Only two stops to go before we're home. Here's hoping I can recapture the positive writing energy of earlier days.

Happy new year!

9 January 2012

Walk like a Roman

Rome is a bustling little city. There are roads enough for significant traffic, and yet it is compact enough to be easily manageable on foot. That is, so long as you walk like a Roman. No hesitations. Cars will stop for you at pedestrian crossings, but only if you step out in front of them. And the same goes with fellow pedestrians - if you waver, they'll barge you off the footpath. Stick to the route you want, and take it full steam ahead. Employing these tactics got us all over Rome for the week of Christmas.

Pantheon dome.

Inside the colosseum.

Outside the colosseum.

We ended up visiting Vatican City three days in a row (it was less than a 20 minute walk from our apartment in the old city). First on Christmas Eve to visit the museums (including the Sistine Chapel), then to be blessed by Pope Benedict on Christmas Day, and then on Boxing Day to St. Peter's Basilica (which had closed early on Christmas Eve). All up it was a very Holy Roman experience.

Christmas with Bene.

For Christmas breakfast we had my favourite breakfast - Nigel's fluffy ricotta pancakes, with yoghurt and freshly sliced oranges in syrup (usually with a dash of orange blossom water, but it never showed itself in Rome).

Abandoned breakfast - running late for our papal blessing.

We hoofed it up the road, across the bridge, and up the other road to make it to St. Peter's just in time. Finn wove us into the thick of the crowd, finding a suitable vantage point just as Benedict's ever-so-slightly wavering old voice reverberated through the speaker system and across the square.

Entering St. Peter's square.

Looking across the masses to the Pope's perch on the balcony.

One of the various large screens placed around the square.

Benedict delivered his Christmas message in Italian, giving quite a few mentions to Africa, children, and families. We also picked up something about Sudan, Myanmar, 2011, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Seemed like a good speech, people clapped, it would've been nice to understand what he was saying.

Popey.
No bulletproof encasement for this ceremony.

The real crowd pleaser came at the end when, having finished his message, he gave his blessing. First he gave it in Italian, after which a large component of the crowd cheered, and then started to move off. Then he gave it in about a million different languages including German, Greek, Japanese, Swahili, Thai, Indonesian, Maori, Samoan, Filipino... And after each blessing a section of the crowd would cheer and clap, having finally understood something he said. The Koreans seemed to have the loudest crowd presence. I can't say I understood a word of the English blessing, I was so distracted by the whole proceedings I didn't even realise he was speaking a language I could understand, if I listened. I felt well blessed all the same.

The Papal bell.

As you can see on the clock, the service lasted close to half an hour, ending with a tolling of St. Peter's bells for about another half hour. That was really nice. After Benedict went back inside, the crowd started to move out of the square and down the road, flanking the procession of elaborately dressed guardsmen who had been standing to attention in front of the basilica.

Merry Christmas, from us and Bene.

It was such a sunny and mild day, after ducking back home to finish our breakfast, we headed up the hill on the Trastevere side of the river. We were really looking for a sunny spot in a park to lie around and read our books, but all we found was a big winding road and lots of lookout points across the city and it's sea of monuments to the giant park on the other side of the city, and beyond to snowy mountains. 

Back in the old city we wandered over to the nearby Christmas markets...

Read PORKetta.
A whole, large suckling pig, boned and stuffed with garlic, fennel, rosemary, and the like.

Happy man. I (also happily) settled for a little bag of praline almonds.

For Christmas dinner we roasted a wee bit of lamb's leg, and it tasted like home.

More Roman wanderings.

Rubbish in the Tiber.
(Count the soccer balls.)

Last gelato.

Trevi fountain.

Boxing Day crowd at the Trevi fountain.

Ascending St. Peter's dome.

View from the top of St. Peter's.
Likely the closest we'll ever get to heaven.

Goodbye Rome, goodbye Italy.

On our last evening in Rome (our last evening of seven months in Italy) we stood and watched the sun go down from a terrace near Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II at Piazza Venezia. Then suddenly, it was amazing, into the dusk flew a million birds. Like shoals of sardines, they flew ducking and diving in great dark swarms. Rome had always felt full of birds compared to anywhere else we've been these last months (especially Venice, which is supposedly a birdie city - I never saw any evidence of it other than pigeons, which don't count), but this was truly a spectacular performance. It had the whole crowd on the terrace mesmerised, it was better than fireworks. A very lovely end to an amazing episode in our lives. Aren't we blessed.

3 January 2012

Into the hills

In order to make the most of our time touring Tuscany and Umbria, we decided to stay in one place. We booked an apartment for a full week in Siena, and for four days in the middle of it we hired a little car. It was a great tactic - basing ourselves in one place and venturing off in a new direction every day, stopping wherever looked good.

Arriving at our apartment with our mountain of baggage.
Up and over and down and up again. So many short sharp hills.

First things first - Finn constructs a sock tree with over a weeks worth of washing to hang out.

View from our garden.
'Our garden' which consisted of a bay tree, a lawn, a rose bush, and a huge lemon verbena.
The church bells woke us every morning at 7.30.

The town's water supply.

The water supply facade.

Looking up the stormy hill towards the cathedral.

The cathedral was amazing. Really amazing. Even after visiting a million and something churches, this one was a stunner. In particular it's stripy exterior in black, white, and pink, and it's floor. Wow. The floor was marble inlay in a whole new style - like a great big inlaid marble comic strip of the bible, with cartoon graphics and speech bubbles in latin. It was awesome.

Woman, not sure who, with cupids holding up her thoughts.

A worried woman, running with her speech bubble held aloft.

Detail of a circle of children climbing a great geometric inlay ring.

Detail from the execution of the innocents.
The dead babies piling up under the executioners feet reminded me a lot of Sendak characters.

This cathedral is really the main sight in Siena, although the city itself is also really nice, so steep and hilly. The cathedral complex also includes a baptistry, built into the hill under the cathedral building and under the crypt; and a museum from where you can climb up the never-realised nave wall that stands alone to the side of the cathedral.

The climb is no easy matter, mind. There's one tight-ish spiral staircase to get to the first level (where the guy is standing taking a photo in my photo), then a second, super tight spiral up to the top. By the time you get there, it really does pay to hold the railings you're so dizzy. Passing people coming down is near impossible, I managed to just squeeze past a super slim woman by agreeing to climb around her on the inside of the spiral while she stopped and pressed herself against the outside wall. It was pretty much a full body hug. 

The end wall of the never-realised nave. If this extension had gone ahead the cathedral would have been epically massive.

View across the city to the rolling Tuscan fields beyond.

Looking back to the cathedral's striped dome and bell tower from 'the wall'.

Looking the other way - that's Siena's main town square, built into the hill, it's shaped like a scallop sloping down to the town hall with the bell tower.

After climbing down again our stomachs were so twisted around and all topsy turvy, we both felt a little ill and unsettled for the rest of the afternoon.

And back down to earth, thank goodness.

An extremely busy, intricately carved facade.

----

On our first day with the hire car we decided to take a scenic route to some of the near-ish-by hill towns, easing Finn back into crazy Italy driving. We did a little loop, from Siena south to a cluster of medieval villages. I didn't take any photos, but the countryside we drove through really was very pretty - rolling green fields of mystery crops, olives, and grapes, and houses and driveways ringed by cypresses. Apparently this is the area they come to film Italian car commercials.

Montepulciano

Famous for recently being a location for part of the Twilight film series - the bar we had coffee and pastries in had a wall decorated with photos from the shoot.

Pienza

Famous for pecorino cheese. Yum.

Montalcino

Situated on top of a hill, like most of these towns are - strategic vantage point and all that, by the time we got here the storm which had been gathering around us since mid-morning was tearing through, carrying all unsecured items - rubbish bins, signage, tree branches - with it. Finn made like a Roman statue and twisted.

Bagno Vignoni

Last on the day's itinerary was this sweet little Roman spa town, where the storm had no breath. Sadly we'd just missed the public geothermal pools, and this one pictured is no longer open to the public. Warm as a bath though, you can just see where it's all bubbling up to the right in the photo. But now that we knew we were in a geothermal area, we were to make it our mission to find more such relaxing treats.

-----

Day 2 in our wee fiat and we headed north to one of Tuscany's 'must see's and it's neighbour.

San Gimignano

City of towers. Towers apparently constructed by feuding families in real mine's bigger than your's style. Gutters and grass banks not long in the sun were still piled with mounds of hail when we arrived in San Gimignano after a hell of a storm the night before, but it had broken to a perfectly clear bright day. The view from the top of the tower we climbed - the tallest one remaining - went for miles, showing up the snow-topped mountains running down the centre of Italy. The museo civico (whose tower we climbed) is home to a great fresco cycle by Memmo di Filippuccio - a room lined with frescoes depicting the 'wrong' and the 'right' choices to be made in matters of love. On one wall there's a bag of money, prostitutes, a public beating, and sad parents... On another there's a marriage, a bath, and bedtime with the misses. Nice.

Volterra

The old town watchtower, now a state prison watchtower.

Etruscan arch - maybe possibly where Romans got the idea of using a keystone.

Wedding party outside the town hall.

----

Day 3

Assisi

Houses built along lanes, both maintaing the shape of a Roman amphitheatre.

Pretty in pink Roman archway.

Low flying cloud over the valley floor.

Roman temple facade.

St. Francis's basilica.

Sunset from the hermitage.

Assisi we loved. Most places were charming, but Assisi the most lovely. The pink limestone particularly won our hearts. (Not long now till we'll be coming home to our own pink house!) 

The basilica, despite Francis's conversion to poverty and preachings of the simple life, was opulent, as you'd expect a catholic basilica to be. The hermitage on the other hand, was not. It was simple and pokey - seemingly built around a series of tight tunnels and tiny caves, with a strong connection to the forrest-covered hills it's snuggly tucked into. 

-----

Day 4 - the day we found hot pools, just outside of Saturnia.

Hot water shooting out of a hole in a hill, these terraced pools were a relaxing treat indeed, even if we did smell a bit off for the rest of the day.

Pitigliano

A real cliff-top town, we stopped only quickly to take in the view.

Civita

Access to Civita is across the valley on this walkway/narrow road.

Etruscan caves now local storehouses.  

Etruscan tunnel under the town.

Archway cut by Etruscans 2500 years ago.

One of Finn's favourite 3-wheeled 50cc 'trucks' heading down the steps to the path across the valley.

Civita is a medieval town built on a tuft of crumbling dirt. It used to be part of a hilly range connecting it to it's neighbour Bagnoregio, but now there is a gaping big chasm between Civita and anywhere else.

It was a fun filled week, each day ending in satisfied exhaustion, and quite often a barbecue. Finn did great driving, with only one or two reminders from the navigator-passanger that he is not Italian (i.e. so, no overtaking on blind corners), and we got everywhere and home again every night so the navigating can't have been too bad. Finding our way home was the most difficult part - we really needed a wider Siena map, not just the old bit overlaid with a central Italy road map. But we managed, a few times around the same roundabout is no big deal really.

2 January 2012