Istanbul with Kids: Street Finds

Our favorite part of Istanbul was the stuff we just stumbled on in the streets.

Riot police prepared for action

We accidentally stumbled upon a political protest march (especially interesting to us since part of David's conference was cancelled over fear of protests). This was a young, cheery crowd carrying signs complaining of Internet censorship by the government. At one point, protesters started swing dancing with a sidewalk jazz band.

Restaurant with three goats' heads. How could we not eat here? It was actually very good.

City Walls. 

 The precipitousness of the "steps" should have warned us--sheer, terrifying drops everywhere off these remnants of the city walls. But the views were staggering.

Fat mannequins. Our hotel was in the garment district. I have never before seen so many clothing shops in such a small space. And some of them used fat mannequins! We even discovered a mannequin store where they sell them!

Tiled houses. In the neighborhoods outside of the city center, many of the houses are covered outside with tiles like you would find in a kitchen or bathroom.

Street Food. Turkish ice cream. Sesame breadsticks (my favorite). Freshly-squeezed juice. And lollipops. As you watched, the lollipop would create a richly fruit-flavored lollipop just for you.

A creepy chess set--Western political leaders versus Al Qaeda.

Istanbul with Kids: Places to Go

The big tourist draws in Istanbul, it turned out, were great places to go with our kids.
Basilica Cistern.

Of all the places we could have visited, we came here first. But to be honest it was only because we were lost and found it before we found Aya Sofya. Still, it was a great introduction to the city of Istanbul. This huge empty underground space held the city's water supply. People would dip buckets through holes into the ground, into this beautiful, atmospheric space, to get their drinking and washing water.

Aya Sofya, aka Hagia Sophia


We talked a lot about why this building was special before we ever got there, which helped a lot. Spots which best grabbed my kids' attention:

ancient Viking graffiti, carved into an upper rail while the mercenary Viking guards were supposed to be guarding the empress;

the hole in a pillar either where the angel protecting Constantinople escaped two days before the Ottomans took over the city, or where the angel put in his hand to turn the building and reorient it toward Mecca, thus making it suitable to be a mosque (depending, obviously, on whether you're on the Christian or Muslim team).

Blue Mosque.
Quiet and beautiful. We sat on the thick carpet mostly and just rested and watched people. Sarajevo is majority Muslim, but most Muslims there are not devout, so it was interesting to the kids to see the serious facilities for the pre-prayer washing.

Cruise on the Bosphorous.

Absolutely, positively wonderful. We were going to take one of the cruises to an island, but because we were there off-season, the ferries were not running the days we could go. Luckily for us, the conference organizers organized a private cruise. Even if you can't go to one of the islands or on a private cruise, though, there are the city ferries. Well worth it.

And it was the first time for me and the kids to ever set foot in Asia!

Topkapi Palace.


The harem was fascinating, and although the lines to see the treasures were long, once we got up to the display cases, we were glad we had waited. The gallery of Islamic treasures (Muhammed's beard hair and tooth, Moses' staff, Abraham's saucepan--that kind of stuff) was packed and didn't speak much to us. We were disappointed the kitchen displays were closed when we were there.

Image source

Spice Market.
The spices were gorgeous and smelled good,

but our very favorite part of the spice market was outside where the animals and the pet food and the leeches were for sale.

According to the signs, leeches cure just about any ailment.

Gulhane Park.
Just a city park with trees and benches and modest playground equipment and statues and ducks (and an odd little museum about the influence of Islam on science). It was the perfect respite when we'd sightseen ourselves out.

And a bonus photo for all those Bays I grew up with!

Istanbul with Kids: Strategies. Tomorrow: Final Istanbul post.

Istanbul with Kids: Strategies

David spoke at a conference in Istanbul, and the organizers graciously invited our family to come along. How can you turn down an opportunity like that?

This was our first visit, so I was  worried about how to make the trip happy for a five year old and seven year old as well as the rest of us. These strategies worked well:

1) Give the camera away. To the youngest members of the family.

I was inspired to do this by Design Mom. Maybe her kids' photos are more successful because she passed on good design genes to them or something. We, on the other hand, ended up with 681 (true) blurry pictures of dubious value (why, for example, do we have a photo of the top shelf of a rack in the gift shop?).

I'd do it again in a heartbeat, though.

Being the family photographers kept the little ones fully engaged for all the time Emma Lucy and I cared to explore places. And as I just now, three weeks later, looked through the photos he took with Isaac, I was surprised at how well he could identify each picture and where he had snapped it.

The young photographers also didn't break either of our cameras, for which I am very grateful.

2)Take guided tours. Without the human guides.

The government in Istanbul registers tour guides, and you can hire one from their list to show you around the most famous sites. Since these sites have few explanatory signs, it is a very attractive option.

I debated about whether to a hire guide but ended up instead renting an audio guide at each place. One person (sometimes me, sometimes Emma Lucy, and for one afternoon that made her feel very powerful, Eleanor) listened and then retold anything interesting to the rest of us.

Later we went back, as part of a conference event, to two of the sites we had already visited with a guide the conference had hired. Our guide told us a completely different set of things than we had heard on the audio guide: equally interesting, but not more so. He was, however, much harder to hear than the audio guide. And he also went on at greater length than my young crowd was interested in (being by far the youngest in our group doubtless contributed). The kids were frustrated to be stranded at a spot they didn't think was interesting but then to be hurried past one of their favorite spots.

Isaac waiting for the tour guide.

So, with kids, my advice is to skip the human guides and to use the audio guides judiciously. The kid-friendly pace it allows is well worth it.

3) Build the anticipation.

One of my favorite blogs talks about the role of anticipation in happiness. Too often when we travel, trip preparations eat up all my energy and I find myself having to explain to the kids when we get wherever we are going why it is we want to see this. This time, determined to give my kids a reason to be excited in advance, we spent an evening the week before our trip looking at pictures of where we would visit and talking about why they were cool places--thank you Wikipedia! To my happy surprise, whining was greatly reduced, and kids even pointed out things to me that I had forgotten about!

But at the same time, it was important to...

4) Seize the surprising moments.


Always a good idea when travelling. Street food, strange restaurants, unusual shops, protests. After all, that's what makes it a visit and not an encyclopedia entry!

Monday: Great Istanbul sites to visit with kids.
Tuesday: Istanbul street life surprises that delighted the kids (and us).