Sultanhamet
It's also where I got robbed. By a fellow dressed up as a policeman (I neglected the prime rules of solo travelers – stick to crowded places, never let them see your wallet, and oh yeah, trust your gut).
It's hard to get a handle on Istanbul. Besides the age-old juxtapositions of West vs East, Modern vs Tradition, different themes crash and come all a-jumbled together. So I'll do the next best thing -- I'll jot some notes about the neighborhoods of this city by the bay, the city of seven hills, and the city that straddles two continents and for a time, it seems the world.
Sultanhamet is the throbbing, if somewhat over-used and over-sold, heart of the grand city. It's the historical nerve center, the traditional Byzantium cum Constantinople cum Istanbul that Turkey wants tourists to see. Of course, they also want tourists to sit at the lovely cafes with their perfect flower pots and 8 lira kebabs. They also want tourists to buy cheap rugs and water pipes and apple tea -- all the things that would shout "I've been to Turkey" to friends at home, items that any good Turk would never be caught dead using. All the backpacker haunts are here, jostling for space with boutique hotels and providing all sorts of amenities, from travel packages to tour guides to wholly spontaneous tea meetings with friends who 'happen to own a carpet shop'.
Did I mention that the Blue Mosque, the Aya Sofia, and the Topaki Palace are incredible? Some of the best preserved monuments in the world that I've seen. In fact, Sultanhamet is fantastically preserved: postcard perfect cobblestone streets, bright homes with terraces that look over the Bosporus, gardens with vines clambering over purple grapes, a hundred minarets like pencils jabbing against the paper blue sky... it's kitschy, to be sure, but not like Prague or Disneyland -- or even Times Square.
It's also where I got robbed. By a fellow dressed up as a policeman (I neglected the prime rules of solo travelers – stick to crowded places, never let them see your wallet, and oh yeah, trust your gut). After a tussle for money, the guy jumped into his car with 5 other guys and sped off. Head in hands, I cursed myself for being stupid. Then the police came – nice fellows. I got to look at all the video feeds from the cameras set up around all corners of Sultanhamet, but no luck cause the thieves were clever, masking their license places in the glares of fog lights and turning their backs away from the cams. I also obliged the cops with a couple of cigs and went through the 4 hour process of recording my name, the story of my stupidity down to the last detail and why I am American but look Chinese.
In short? Sultanhamet: lovely for a couple of days introduction to Istanbul, but don't get robbed, avoid the touts and stay clear of the smelly backpackers.