Toby and Allan's 2013 Europe Adventure: A Day of Contrasts

Friday June 7 was a bit muggy, but still pleasant. After visiting Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence yesterday and seeing his short piece in the New Yorker about the Gezi Park demonstrations (see http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/06/memories-of-a-public-square.html), we decided to visit the posh neighbourhood of Nisantasi. To get there, we walked up to Taksim Square to take the Metro for one long stop. There were some new posters called for PM Erdogan to resign, lots more graffiti and still lots of folks in the square and nearby Gezi Park. The PM's remarks yesterday have been taken as another sign of his arrogance and no one is leaving the Park anytime soon.

Today's headlines in English language paper

Posters on a huge building in Taksim Square

Sheet hanging on Istiklal Street near Taksim Square

Independence Monument 1928, in centre of Taksim Square with banners

Tayyip (the PM) resign!

We took the subway which had some interesting mosaics on the walls.

Map of Istanbul in subway

Nisantasi is a gentrified neighbourhood with very high-end stores and lovely apartments. We passed by the Pamuk apartments where Orhan Pamuk lived with his family growing up. We had forgotten to get the exact address- so only found out where the apartment was when we got back to the apartment.

Pamuk Apts. at 53 Tesvikiye Ave (from Internet)

The door (from Internet)

We did see some other lovely buildings.

Apartment buildings in Nisantasi

Another apt. in same area

We did go into one very high end store with incredible Turkish textiles and jewelery. It was called Armaggan. There was no one else in the narrow six floor store. We were escorted by salespeople as we went up in the elevator and checked out the textile floor. Beautiful clothes and textiles, but way to expensive. Nice to look and we took a few pictures.

Beautiful display of dress and jacket

Beautiful dress and necklace

Row of natural dyed dresses

We also saw a Laduree macaron store that we checked out. We didn't buy anything as we will be in Paris is a few weeks.

Laduree Istanbul

We walked down a very fashionable street called Abdi Ipekci and passed a statue of the man, for whom the street is named. Abdi Ipekci was a Turkish journalist, intellectual and human rights activist who was murdered in 1979 when he was editor in chief of a Turkish daily called Milliyet. The statue was erected in 2000 and the street was also named for him.

Abdi Ipekci 1929-79

We then decided to stop for lunch at a very buzzy place called Delicatessen. While a bit pricey, our grilled seafood salad was very good (they grill a lot of octopus in Istanbul) and the scene was fun.

The scene at Delicatessen

Our grilled seafood salad

The local lunch crowd

Beautiful building next door to Delicatessen

After a leisurely lunch, we decided to walk back to our apartment. Luckily it was downhill all the way to Taksim Square. We walked beside a large park called "Demokrasi Parki".

View of Demokrasi Parki

On the way downhill, we passed a number of buses with police and a water cannon. They were parked near a stadium.

Police hanging out near stadium

A water cannon machine

The police were still a bit away from Taksim Square. As we were coming in from the back side of Taksim Square, we had to walk around burned out buses and other barricades. All calm at 4:00 p.m.

Barricades

Burnt out bus barricade ( we saw at least 5 burnt out buses)

We passed by Gezi park and saw lots of folks with pup tents.

Gezi park

Another barricade

Another bus barricade

We also passed a group of women dancing in the middle of the square near the Metro.

Dancing in Taksim Square

There were a number of posters with the demands of the protesters.

The list of demands

We stopped to talk with a young man who was putting up a poster (see below) from Partizan with his comrades. His english was quite good and he reiterated that the park was only a symptom of the crack down and authoritarianism of PM Erdogan. He had no hesitation calling Erdogan a fascist and spoke of many who had been put in jail. Partizan is CPC-ML (Maoist) and their original leader was murdered in jail in 1973. He said the first part of the poster was about the three people that had been killed this past week and the rest talked about the demands. He said it was not the revolution, but a protest for democracy. We also overheard another conversation on the street where folks were talking about how the disparate opposition groups were finally working together.

We walked back down Istiklal Steet, passing many fruit vendors. We had watermelon, but cherries and plums are also in abundance.

Gorgeous cherries (we got a kilo last week)

Plums in season too

After a rest, we went out for dinner at Antiochia, a restaurant recommended by our friend Vicky, and in the Istanbul Eats book. It's a small place that serves food from Turkey's southern Hatay region. We shared a mixed meze plate which had some wonderful flavours. We also had a walnut and pomegranate salad with arugula. The main course was a local meat dish with tomatoes, onion and okra. For dessert, we had a walnut specialty with ice cream.

We were sitting beside two men who had gone to high school together in Istanbul. They had both lived outside of Turkey for a number of years, but were now back with their families. Both were very secular and disapproved of the PM, citing his restrictions on alcohol and his statements that everyone should have three kids. They also noted that the restaurant we were eating at used to have tables on the street which were now not allowed because they served alcohol. A very divided country, but fascinating and the food is superb.