I love Karakoy – My Trike

Last Sunday dawned warm and sunny so I decided it was time for a decent walk. I’ve not been doing as much walking this time in Istanbul because I’ve been getting a bit of discomfort from my right knee, the one I had keyhole surgery on about 14 or 15 years ago before coming to France.

I think I damaged it again slightly when I pulled my old X-Air out of the barn over soft ground before flying it up to its new owner on 5th March and I’ve been trying to get it to heal again as the consultant told me at the time that the surgery would probably only be good for about 15 years, after which, who knows. I don’t want to get involved in knee replacement and all that stuff and in any case, I’m booked to go off to Australia in the Autumn so haven’t the time.

My hotel, Hotel Mara, is very well placed just off the main tourist street, Istiklal Avenue, along which the trams run from Taksim Square to Tunel.

So I decided to walk down and then turn left with the idea of finding my way down to the Galata Tower and thence to the ferry terminal at Karakoy. This being a week-end there were large numbers of tourists, many of them locals, doing the same as me and as usual, the police were out in force. They seem to make protecting locations with Christian connections a priority and as this was a Sunday, not only was there a police presence outside a large Christian church on Istiklal Avenue there was also an armoured car.

I carried on walking down to the end of Istiklal Avenue but this time, instead of heading straight down towards the Galata Tower, I branched off to the right with the idea of exploring the streets behind it and hopefully making my way up to the tower from its rear.

The trams don’t come down this far but this is where the line ends, outside the Metro station.

I then began to head steadily downwards making my way towards the harbour, and hoping to find the Galata Tower along the way.

Eventually, looking to my left, there it was.

There was quite a crowd milling around in the area at the base of the tower and I can only wonder how big it would be at the height of the tourist season. The ticket office to climb the tower was one of the old Taksim trams and as the cost of entry was only 30 TL I considered going myself. However, the length of the queue and the speed of its progress soon made me decide otherwise.

Instead I opted to continue my walk down the steep, winding streets to find the ferry terminal at Karakoy.

Below the tower I came across this very photogenic flight of steps that led back up to where I’d just come from. While waiting for the crowd to clear a bit and an opportunity to take some photographs I managed to drop my phone onto the concrete road surface and I was very concerned that it might have been damaged. However, I’m relieved that it seems to be unscathed but I’ll have to see over time if in fact that is the case.

I then continued my journey downwards towards the harbour.

And finally it and the Galata Bridge came into sight.

You need to use an underpass in order to get across the very busy road junction. The underpass is a hive of small shops selling everything from mobile phones to underwear and this is a shot of its entrance on the other side.

From there I found my way round to the ferry quayside next to the Galata Bridge. You can walk across the bridge if you want to go from Beyoglu to Fatih on the other side.

This is the somewhat undistinguished looking ferry terminal entrance.

This is not just an area popular with tourists. Today it was alive with local fishermen and the odd sharp-eyed cat seeing if they could find an opportunity to get a share of any of their spoils. They occasionally did when they were tossed the odd tiddler that was too small to count as a proper catch.

A final look back before I made my around to the Galataport side and thence to Karakoy itself.

The next is a shot of a cruise liner moored at Galataport taken from the ‘other’ side of the security screen before I turned left into a side road leading to Karakoy.

I love Karakoy and I heartily recommend anyone visiting Istanbul to go there. Its narrow streets are traffic free apart from the odd motor scooter that are everywhere and its little bars, cafés and restaurants are quaint and super inviting.

And you’ll also come across the odd Shisha bar there too, as in the next picture.

As well as purchasing food and drinks there, you can also hire the use of a Shisha pipe, or Hookah, and as I passed by it was apparent that a number of patrons of both sexes were doing exactly that. There is a misconception that Shishas are for smoking hashish, but although some no doubt are, this is not their intended primary purpose. They are mainly for smoking special blends of Turkish tobacco flavoured with herbal and floral aromatics.

The smoke is filtered through water contained in the main bowl of the Shisha and many people believe that because of that smoking a Shisha is safer than smoking cigarettes. But this definitely isn’t so. The water does not filter out any of the tars and other harmful materials contained in the tobacco smoke and any smokers who are tempted to give a Shisha a go are strongly advised not to do so. The reason is that a 30 minute Shisha session is the same as smoking 100, yes that’s right, 100 normal cigarettes and although Shishas have been around for hundreds of years they present a huge health threat, much more so than ‘ordinary’ smoking, which is very widely prevalent in Turkey among all age groups.

I thence made my way through the narrow windy street to find somewhere to buy a beer and a burger, which I did. And most enjoyable it was too, sitting in the sun filtered through an overhead vine.