The Capital of The World: Istanbul Building a Future to Mirror Its Past

PHOTO: The Blue Mosque is the Ottoman answer to Hagia Sophia. (Courtesy of Turkish Tourist Office)

Just last week TripAdvisor’s latest rankings of the world’s most popular cities found Istanbul on top. Despite a year highlighted by civil unrest in Taksim Square, the city managed to leap 11 places to number 1. On many of the old walls of Istanbul, the plaster is worn away so that you can see beneath the surface to layers of red brick, field stone and old bits of marble from the churches and palaces of Old Constantinople. For all of its new found modernity, Istanbul is not a city of glass and polished steel, but a place where 2,400 years of urban activity have made it as comfortable as a favorite pair of jeans. Napoleon once said if the world were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.

So where do you begin to talk about things to do in a city that was the most important capital in Europe for 1,700 years and under three distinct empires: Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman? In fact, the 20^th century was the only century since the year 324 that Istanbul wasn’t a major power. The good news for Turkey is that it’s well on its way to being one again. Istanbul is almost as invested in the future as it is in its glorious past. So let’s begin with modernity.

Turkey’s economy, the 17^th largest in the world, has been on a roll for several years and its geopolitical position between Europe and the Near East is making it once again a crossroads for trade and culture. The city is currently building one of the world’s largest airports to handle 150 million passengers annually. The mega six-runway airport will be spread across 30 square miles northwest of Istanbul. Operations at the new Istanbul airport will begin with the opening of the first stage, with a capacity of 90 million, in 2017.

Of course, rail is where the smart money looks when it looks at the future of transport and Istanbul is currently testing the first phase of a new high-speed train to Ankara. Just last week, Thales was awarded a € 10 million contract to install a new signaling and telecommunications system. The system is running between Istanbul and Eskehir, about two-thirds of the total distance.

Last October, on the 90^th birthday of the Turkish Republic, Istanbul unveiled its $4.1 billion Marmaray Transport Corridor, a 48-mile rail link running beneath the Istanbul Strait. You can call it the “missing link” because it was the last missing piece of an unbroken rail line that now extends all the way from London to Beijing.

Things to Do in Istanbul

The Sultanahmet area of Istanbul is basically what was the old Byzantine city of Constantinople. Thus it is the center of the city’s illustrious history and the home to Emperor Justinian’s Church of the Divine Wisdom or Hagia Sophia. Back in 537, when Justinian’s builders had completed the church, its great dome, once covered in four acres of gold leaf, was said by one ancient visitor to appear “suspended from heaven by a golden thread.”

When the Ottoman Turks captured the city in 1453, all of Hagia Sophia’s gold as well as all of the mosaic- and jewel-covered interior had already been stripped by the Venetian-led Fourth Crusade in 1204. Despite the destruction, the soaring heights of the interior still takes your breath away when you enter. For Greek Orthodox Christians it is their lost Vatican, the navel of their faith.

From Hagia Sophia you can look across several acres of garden to what is the Ottoman answer to the great church, the Blue Mosque. Completed in 1616, over the grounds of the old Byzantine palace, the Blue Mosque is to tile what Hagia Sophia was to mosaics. The interior of the mosque is covered with blue Iznik tile.

Inspired by the great dome of Hagia Sophia, Ottoman architects (including Sinan who is the acknowledged master) gave the city its signature skyline of domes and minarets. Nearby Topkapi Palace is a 183-acre compound that was home to 24 Ottoman sultans between 1453 and 1850 as well as 4,000 political and military advisors, cooks, musicians, eunuchs and harem girls. The palace and the harem in the palace attract about more than 2 million visitors per year.

Beneath Sultanahmet are the chambers of the 1,700-year old Binbirdirek Cistern. When you enter this vast and shadowy chamber, supported by a multitude of columns, you can’t help but feel as if you’ve entered the densely populated realm of the city’s long past.

The grounds of the old Hippodrome are still open, surrounded by tea shops and retail stores selling leather and carpets. Up the hill from the Hippodrome is Constantine’s Column, a landmark worth mentioning because it was erected at the precise moment that the Roman Empire became a Christian, thus it’s arguably the most important mile post in Europe. Local legend holds that the original cross of Jesus is buried beneath it.

A few blocks away is the world’s largest covered bazaar. The Kapali Carsi, in business since 1461, is an amazing maze of 3,600 shops, crowding around 36 streets, which if lined up end to end would stretch 40 miles. It has police stations, a hospital, a multitude of restaurants and 18 separate gated entrances.

In 2010, Istanbul upgraded and renovated several cultural institutions such as museums and performance spaces in order to host the city’s year as European Cultural Capital. New museums and performance spaces were also added. Architect Frank Gehry is waiting for the go ahead to get started on the Suna Kiraç Cultural Center, an opera house and performance space.

Many visitors will spend days just exploring the mosques and other architectural landmarks in the city. Istanbul's lesser known palaces include Maslak Kasri, the Sultan’s hunting lodge and resting place, as well as Malta Kosku which was built in the mid-19th century by the Sultan Abdulaziz in a heavily forested park and used as a mansion for the Sultans and their ladies.

When the people of Istanbul want a day to relax in a little country they often take a ferry to the Princes’ Islands, a chain of nine islands where there are no cars. People get around on horse-drawn carts. Heybeliada Island is home to restaurants and stores. The island’s landmark is the hilltop Hagia Triada (Holy Trinity) Monastery, dating back to 1894. Buyukada (Great Island), is covered with villas climbing up the pine covered slopes of a hill.

One of the largest parks in Istanbul, Emirgan has several tulip gardens and a special garden was established in the park in the 1960s to revive the city's tradition of tulip cultivation. Although tulips are associated with Holland, commercial cultivation of the tulip began in the Ottoman Empire. The flower slowly entered the Turkish culture as it has been utilized as a motif in the traditional sewn Ottoman garments, the Sultans’ carefully crafted tulip-embroidered caftans, and even received its own name during the historical period known as Tulip era (Lale Devri).

Traditional Turkish steam baths, or hamams, are Ottoman institutions that have been part of the Turkish lifestyle for centuries. Istanbul’s best known hamams are the Suleymaniye Bath in Istanbul, a mixed hamam (men, women and families may bathe together) built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1550; and the Cagaloglu Turkish Bath near the Hagia Sophia in Old Istanbul, which dates to 1741.