The plan this afternoon was to walk along the land walls of Byzantium. It was not the best devised plan, as I was a bit under the weather, so we got off at the wrong tram stop and then wandered through residential streets, along the tall walls of a graveyard we should have walked through, etc. Eventually we found the walls at around Topkapi, and very impressive they were too. There was one point where one could climb up, so we did, and walked along them for a bit, but then a rather crazed drug addict started following us so we made a polite retreat back to ground level, where we were in sight of other people. Generally, there were far more drug addicts, drunks etc than one normally sees, though I think maybe because they were the ones on the street and the general public, who normally dilute them, were not there.
We ended in Balat where our usual cafe was shut but the one across the street was open, so we sat on a bench along the street and had coffee, watching a cat rolling contentedly in the gutter while another with a face perfectly bisected black and orange rubbed its head against our feet, one after the other. Then a taxi back where the GF made some dinner.
Disatisfying, as we didn’t actually manage to visit any of the points with stories attached, like the pool of water filled with goldfish that are reputedly brown on one side because their ancestor leapt off a frying pan and made its escape, but pleasant nonetheless. The sun was out for much of the way and it was quite warm, so hopefully we are on the road to summer. Though Istanbul’s microclimates were in full display, as Pera was also sunny and warm, but Sarayburnu was covered in mist and as we passed in our tram, people were clutching warm jackets around them. At one stop a man dropped his wireless earphone and it slipped between the tram and the tracks and he actually tried reaching down to collect them – a very foolish thing, of course, but a friend pulled him back before the tram could take his fingers off. I would not be surprised if the earphone survived. In any case, that is why I am not sure I will get a set for myself, nothing seems to stick in my ear other than my old Shure ones which only staying by basically closing them up with sealing wax.