We took our second trip to Asia, this time by walking along the coast (a bit inland to avoid the dust and traffic) to Kabataş, through quiet streets lined with little old blocks of flats and past the place we are moving to next week. It’s a far more residential bit than the beautiful Galata street we are on at the moment, and is accessible only by stairs. A bit of a shame that our house guests are coming after we’ve moved there, but the flat itself looks very nice and does also have beautiful views. (Also a projector).
From Kabataş we took the ferry over to Üsküdar, Scutari as it was, then walked along the sea to the small neighbourhood of Kuzguncuk, a sort of Stoke Newington of Istanbul in terms of being pretty, full of nice cafes and shops, suitable for families, and very much an enclave. This sounds more disparaging than I intend it, as I liked Kuzguncuk far, far more than I like Stoke Newington, in fact I dislike Stoke Newington and it requires genuine effort for me to even remember its name. The first thing that struck me about Kuzguncuk was the number of trees; the high street was lined with thick old trees, more than I’d seen in weeks, all shading a pretty, well-kept streetscape that, in appearance was perhaps more similar to Hampstead High Street in appearance. The second was the number of cafes – in pandemic times the pavements were lined with tables, and each one was full. The third, unhappily was the traffic: reflecting its position at the end of a line, or with no real lines reaching it, the street was full with cars.
We had a very nice fish lunch, with fish soup and sardines grilled in grape leaves, and a couple of tasty cold mezzes, then strolled through the streets, stopping for profiteroles and then a latte at a little cafe on a side street run by a pleasant woman who might have been a witch and her daughter, with vivid red dyed hair and vivid red lipstick. The latte was odd – I think they were not expecting that sort of order, so we got a hot coffee topped with a swirl of cream and Hershey kisses, served in the sort of clear glass cup you get for iced coffee, and a straw to drink it through. I was quite enjoying the oddness of it all and thoroughly enjoyed my coffee though certainly by any objective standard it was not very good. In the window above there appeared to be a church, or at least the window was painted over with crosses and doves, and a man leaned out to adjust the satellite dish, making a loud, grinding sound, and all the neighbours popped their heads out of their windows to see what on earth was going on. At a table beside us were some women playing backgammon; at another was a little group of twenty year old women, of whom one looked, as the GF pointed out, exactly like the queen of hearts. All in all it was a very female environment; the GF and the man in the church window were the only males around, and one van driver who drove through causing masculine disruption (he threw a beer bottle out of his window into a rubbish bin, missed, and green glass shattered on the street).
Come to think of it, the fish place was also run by a pleasant, slightly witchy middle-aged woman, and peering into cafes we passed, so were many others. Maybe such is the way of Kuzguncuk.
We strolled on, finding a really quite lovely park: a wide open space, planted with tomato vines and fruit trees and reaching up a hillside, then climbed up one of the steep hills to the mosque crowning it to see the view towards the Bosphorus Bridge and, behind it, two other bridges in the distance. We walked down towards Üsküdar through yet another park, also set down a steep hillside, with pleasant green foresty bits crisscrossed by road. There are so few parks in Istanbul, it’s its great weakness. It could learn something from Taipei in this.
We caught the ferry at Üsküdar, taking it to Eminönü, and then walked across the Galata Bridge to return.
It was a good old-fashioned neighbourhood exploration, one that caught a feeling that I don’t think I’ve had in months, maybe a full year.