{"id":56646,"date":"2012-09-09T13:09:43","date_gmt":"2012-09-09T10:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=56646"},"modified":"2023-07-26T11:08:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T08:08:12","slug":"making-ourselves-at-home-in-cihangir-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2012\/09\/09\/making-ourselves-at-home-in-cihangir-istanbul\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Ourselves at Home in Cihangir, Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n
\u2013 September 8, 2012<\/abbr>Posted in: <\/strong>Travel Lifestyle, Turkey<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where that is,\u201d says the guy, poring over the address I\u2019ve hand-copied. \u201cJust walk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWalk?!\u201d I say. I mean, I know we\u2019re walking distance from Cihangir, but\u2026 \u201cBut I don\u2019t know where it is. I\u2019ll take a taxi.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe taxi driver won\u2019t know it, either,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I say, trying to envisage exactly how well Zac will react to walking randomly up and down the hills of Cihangir, pack on back, without a map. \u201cI think I\u2019ll try a taxi all the same.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Our mysterious address turns out to be a narrow, steep alley, lined with tall, narrow apartment houses, with a bevy of cats standing guard. I like it. I like it a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, to my surprise<\/strong><\/span>, I like our flat too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSee, Mum?!\u201d says Zac. \u201cThe entrance hall is bigger than our garret.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And I think he might be right\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Wimdu<\/strong><\/span> have given us a credit to spend on one of their Istanbul apartments. I wasn\u2019t optimistic about the flat, which was offered to us after several first choices weren\u2019t available, but I\u2019m genuinely chuffed with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

(When using Wimdu, incidentally, do as I say, not as I do. And I say: \u201cBook at least a fortnight in advance.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

But\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

We have a kitchen! A washing machine! A dining table! And a desk in the bedroom!<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d been thinking about getting a 2-bedroom flat, but this one<\/strong><\/span> is big enough to allow us plenty of space from each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

We feel, in fact, pretty much instantly at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

And\u2026 Did I mention we have a kitchen?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an old Victorian building, with wrought iron banisters and a narrow marble staircase, and even a couple of books provided, which always makes me feel at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Plus a local area map to help us meander the warren of narrow streets that make up Cihangir.<\/span><\/p>\n

I instantly feel much, much happier about our sojourn in Istanbul.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to go to a supermarket,\u201d says Zac, who\u2019s clearly in settling in mode. (One of our favourite things whenever we have a base somewhere is doing the mundane stuff of life, just in a new city: shopping for a pencil sharpener<\/strong><\/span>, for example, gave us an amazing insight into Hanoi.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a Carrefour here,\u201d says the girl from the letting agency. \u201cYou need to turn by the mosque, and it\u2019s right there\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cExcellent!\u201d Zac\u2019s a creature of habit, and he does like his Carrefour, a business which, for whatever hypocritical reasons, strike us, like Starbucks, as a more pleasing face of globalisation than, say, McDonald\u2019s or Accessorize.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder what an Istanbul Carrefour\u2019s going to be like?\u201d I say. \u201cNothing like a Chinese Jah-le-fo<\/strong><\/span>, I bet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSmaller, I\u2019d have thought,\u201d says Zac. \u201cAnd, no pork.\u201d (After sojourns in Lebanon and Israel, both of which have restaurants with plenty of pig on the menu, we\u2019re not as quite as Vitamin P-deprived as you\u2019d think from the time we\u2019ve spent in the Middle East. But pork is looming large on our horizons.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d I say. \u201cI bet they have pork.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWAIT!\u201d he says. \u201cLet\u2019s make a list.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

They do have pork! And everything on our list.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, but for the presence of pastirma and Turkish beef sausages, rather more yoghurt and yoghurt related products than we\u2019re used to, and perhaps a few too many pulses, it\u2019s a disappointingly unexotic Carrefour.<\/span><\/p>\n

So we meander around the local shops. We stock up on giant peaches, fresh plums, burstingly ripe tomatoes, garlic, onions, enormous radishes, a selection of green leaves \u2013 \u201cWILL you not TASTE that?! You\u2019re EMBARRASSING me!\u201d \u201cBut how else am I going to find out what it is?!\u201d \u2013 lemon sodas and Turkish red wine.<\/span><\/p>\n

We identify a promising baklava joint, and some cool looking local cafe-bars, drop off our shopping and then wander some more.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel genuinely happy to be in Cihangir.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re a handful of yards from the horrors of Istiklal, and clearly in tourist apartment central, but the district, much of it built by Europeans around a century ago, has a boho cutesiness that reminds me a lot of Plovdiv<\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are art galleries in converted bath-houses. A Manhattan-styled pizza joint. The odd clothing boutique, and the odd retailer of tourist tat, plus a wealth of second-hand stores.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet there\u2019s also plenty of cheap b\u00fcfes (local stores), old men hand-squeezing oranges for juice, authentic hammams and, y\u2019know, not-really-for-tourists junk stores.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Not to mention the cats, of course. Rather as kittens dominated Egypt for us<\/strong><\/span>, so cats, who secretly rule the city, dominate Istanbul.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like this fella, who clearly believes he runs his secondhand bookstore.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYep,\u201d says Zac, as we meander home. \u201cI definitely like this flat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really like this neighbourhood,\u201d I say. \u201cIt\u2019s still crumbly enough in places to feel kind of real.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re both much happier here than we would have been amid the stellar buildings and overpriced restaurants of Sultanahmet, across the water, or we were by the chaos of Taksim.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cihangir manages to combine a sense of authenticity and history with \u2013 let\u2019s be honest \u2013 the easy stuff that tourists (for tourists we are<\/strong><\/span>) need.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can walk to Istanbul Modern from here, and we\u2019re barely four tram stops from the big ticket sights across the water. It\u2019s just so easy\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow much longer are we here for?\u201d Zac asks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I say. \u201cWe\u2019re here for six days. But maybe we should extend?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.escapeartistes.com\/2012\/09\/08\/making-ourselves-at-home-in-cihangir-istanbul\/<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2013 September 8, 2012Posted in: Travel Lifestyle, Turkey \u201cI don\u2019t know where that is,\u201d says the guy, poring over the address I\u2019ve hand-copied. \u201cJust walk.\u201d \u201cWalk?!\u201d I say. I mean, I know we\u2019re walking distance from Cihangir, but\u2026 \u201cBut I don\u2019t know where it is. I\u2019ll take a taxi.\u201d \u201cThe taxi driver won\u2019t know it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":56647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1094],"tags":[8339],"class_list":["post-56646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tourism","tag-cihangir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}