Awareness of the interior world. Apologies if this post is scattered and/or under-explained. I had plans. I also had work this week. Stresses me out far more than is reasonable. It’s Friday evening and I’m basically tossing my notes at you. Enjoy.
Things I Would Do In Istanbul IRL
As with Cairo, hit the big sites. [Cairo Travel, Lots of Links, Non-Fiction]
Then, I’d want to at least walk thorough the places where folks actually lived and worked. The Statue of Liberty is not NYC.
An Orhan Pamuk Walking Tour. Make my own if I can’t find one. Starting at Masumiyet Müzesi (Museum of Innocence). Inside Out In Istanbul: Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, Morrow 2016.
Mosques are open to tourists, but closed during prayer hours, “During the 5 prayer hours in the day, the mosque is closed for about 90 minutes to non-worshippers and visitors.” Blue Mosque Tickets & Tours: What are Blue Mosque opening hours? That’s 7&1/2 hours of the day, with multiple openings & closings. I imagine that complicates crowd management.
Bus over the bridge & ferry ride back.
Horses as previous.
US Department of State: Turkey Travel Advisory, Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution. On 30 May 2025.
Istanbul Virtual & Vicarious
Found a lot more on Istanbul than on Cairo, aside from pyramids.
Video. Rick Steves > Watch, Read, Listen > Watch, TV Shows > Turkey > Istanbul (2008). Website has other videos and blog posts. My thoughts on Steves in Cairo post.
Website. TravelMarx: Postcards from Istanbul.
Book. Home Sweet Anywhere, Martin (Sourcebooks 2014), read as ebook, Relevant sections are the end of Transatlantic Crossing (C5) & the Istanbul section of Turkey (C6). Rest of book on my digital TBR pile. Author’s website, Home Free Adventures, last date is 2022.
Book. AUC: Press: An Istanbul Anthology, edited by Kaya Genç ( AUC 2015). Did not buy. Would be on my list for learning more about the city, or at least what has been said about Istanbul.
Video. Mediapolis: TV Cities, Istanbul: The Labor of Reconstructing History in Turkish TV Series, How is historic Istanbul recreated for the screen? Drawing on interviews with local media professionals, Ipek Celik Rappas considers the challenges of filming heritage television series in a rapidly changing city. Rappas 2022.
Language. “In Turkey, where I grew up and went to college, there was an alphabet revolution in 1928. Before then, everything was written in the Arabic script. After that year, everything was written in the Latin script. Schools stopped teaching the Arabic script, and print shops stopped printing it. So, when I enrolled in the history department for my master’s degree, I had to learn the Arabic script from scratch just to read anything in Turkish published before 1928.” WashU: Alphabet revolutions, Valeri 2023. Rest of article is about China. Not particularly relevant to travel, but an interesting point.
Book. Istanbul, Memories and the City, by Orhan Paul, translated by Maureen Freely (Vintage 2004 translation). Did not finish. Less about Istanbul & more about how the author feels about Istanbul. A legit genre, just not one that holds my attention.
Virtual. Road Scholar: Adventures Online: Discover Istanbul Through the Ages. Virtual tour. Expensive. I’d be interested in trying one of these some day. Page has link to a recommended reading list. A while back, I took a virtual walking tour with KeithYorkCity through Cooper Hewitt, which I enjoyed very much. I could see how a live virtual tour could work, if done well. Downside, that’s a lot of sitting. Also, I would want compute power that was faster than waving semaphore flags at the mothership.
Book. The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman ( Fawcett 1970). Note date. Part of the action takes place in Istanbul. I found it entertaining to reread. Would it engage someone for whom the cold war is an event in a history book? Dunno.
Again, advisory level 0, another advantage of virtual over IRL.
Current online class, UC Graham: From Istanbul to Cairo: The City in the Historical Novels of the Middle East. My Name is Red by Orman Pamuk is one of the required books for my class.
Onwards!
Katherine
Virtual Brush Box 