SCOTLAND: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HEROES

PART 2: BELFAST TO CAIRNRYAN AND LIVERPOOL BIRKENHEAD TO BELFAST

CAN DO: 92-year-old Tartan terror Tom Gilzean

The world of electronics — and rascally scrap metal thieves — will be forever grateful to the two fellas who were walking down Aberdeen’s Union Street many years ago and spotted a halfpenny on the pavement. The ensuing tug-of-war during which the coin was stretched beyond all recognition and one of the combatants ended up in Dundee while still pulling resulted in the thinnest copper wire ever produced.

That at least is the story I was told by 92-year-old and much-decorated war veteran Tom Gilzean when I stopped for a chat on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile a few hours after stepping off Stena’s Superfast VII ferry in Cairnryan. Tom, who was resplendent in full Highland dress and sporting a chestful of campaign medals, knows a thing or two about pennies — he raised 4.2 million of them (£42,000) for disabled servicemen and sick children in 2010. And then some pea-brained pencil-pusher on the city council banned him from rattling his collecting cans in the street and threatened him with legal action, saying he didn’t have the correct permit. You can imagine the public outrage when distraught and frail widower Tom shed tears during an interview on nationwide television.

Fortunately, furious deputy council leader Steve Cardownie kicked up such a stink in the chamber, where he described Tom as “a man who does Edinburgh proud”, that a special dispensation was hastily granted and the former Royal Engineers sapper was allowed to resume his admirable work. But the memory of that permit palaver still rankled as we chatted outside the Camera Obscura, one of the city’s top tourist attractions.

WARPED FACTOR: In the Camera Obscura

“I was married for 55 years and miss my wife so very much,” said Tom. “That’s the reason I’m out here on the streets doing this — I don’t know what I’d do if they stopped me collecting for the injured soldiers and the poor wee bairns. It’s the only thing that keeps me going. I was ready to go to jail if that’s what it took. The way they were treating me, you’d think I was a beggar. If I’m not allowed to do my charity work they might as well put me in my box.”

Just then, a beautiful young Spanish woman dropped some coins in one of Tom’s cans and planted a kiss on his cheek. His face lit up and he did a little jig. If he’d been a younger man and fitter he might have done a cartwheel as well, but in a kilt it would probably have got him arrested.

“Gracias, señorita!” he called as his new admirer headed up the cobbled street towards the castle — the home of the Scottish Crown Jewels, it attracted 1.3 million visitors last year — with her giggling girlfriends.

“She’s clearly not from Aberdeen,” said Tom, reinforcing my impression that he’s none too fond of people from the Granite City. “It’s a job and a half getting money out of Aberdonians. Oh, a tight-fisted lot they are. They’ve got padlocks on their purses and pockets in their shrouds.”

And then he let out a blood-curdling roar which startled several passers-by. “Come on all you miserable Aberdonians! Dig deep for the wounded soldiers and sick bairns!”

Tom, who began collecting for charity in 2005 when a friend asked him to help the Sick Kids’ Friends Foundation, is one of Edinburgh’s most colourful characters, but if he stood beside Brazilian-born former nurse Elaine Davidson he’d be invisible.

MOST-PIERCED: Elaine Davidson

Forty-four-year-old Elaine, who sells fetish gear — and postcards — from her Tropical Rainbow shop in Candlemaker Row where she also offers crystal ball and tarot card readings, is the world’s most-pierced woman. Her 6,925 piercings, including nearly 200 in her face and more than 500 in her — how shall I put this? — in her knickers weigh around three kilos. Not surprisingly, her appearance turns heads in the street, but none was more turned than that of retired civil servant Douglas Watson who met her in a Glasgow coffee shop 15 years ago and married her last June. He must have a magnetic personality.

When I got talking to Elaine in the Lawnmarket, the teetotal non-smoker told me her wedding in Edinburgh’s register office had been a “low-key affair” at which Douglas, who has no piercings, no tattoos and no intention of every getting any, wore a dark blue suit, blue shirt and Marks and Spencer tie. She arrived in a puffy white dress and with her face painted green, yellow and blue, the colours of the Brazilian flag.

“Douglas is a kind and gentle man,” said Elaine, “and being married to him is wonderful. I’m so happy. After 15 years of friendship and growing closer, having a wedding ring on my finger isn’t going to change the way I live my life. Mind you, I’ve had to give up sleeping on my bed of nails.”

I had to ask: Why so many piercings? Wasn’t it painful? And when will enough be enough?

“You get used to the pain,” said Elaine. “After the first couple of hundred I didn’t really feel it. I like my piercings, they’re an expression of my personality. Some people express themselves by the clothes they wear, I do it by getting my body pierced. It’s how I am. I don’t know how many you could call enough. It’s not that I can’t stop, it’s just that I’ve never thought of stopping. When I had 462 piercings back in 2000 somebody said to me it must be a record. That’s when it became a challenge. I thought, I wouldn’t mind being in the Guinness Book of Records, so they examined me and said yes, I was the world’s most-pierced woman. I’ve carried on getting piercings since then. I suppose one day I’ll decide, right, no more, but I don’t think that day will be any time soon.”

In bumping into tartan terror Tom, who’s raised more than £200,000 for charity in seven years, I’d met a hero, which was appropriate as I’d gone to Edinburgh specially to see the man who’s been my personal hero since I was a child. The fact he’s been dead for nearly 220 years is neither here nor there.

HE'S MY HERO: Poet Robert Burns

Alexander Nasmyth’s 1787 portrait of his close friend Robert Burns — said to be the truest likeness of Scotland’s national poet — had been in storage for two-and-a-half years while the National Portrait Gallery where it hangs underwent an £18 million renovation, reopening last December. I last saw the painting 30 years ago, but my fascination with Burns goes back nearly 40. In that time I’ve amassed an obsessionally-large collection of books about the man who wrote Auld Lang Syne and more than 500 other poems and songs during a tragically short life (he died aged 37 in 1796). I don’t have anywhere near as many Burns books and bits of memorabilia as Elaine has piercings, but the weight of them all will one day cause my floorboards to collapse.

My nose was no more than a foot from Burns’ as I stood for ages admiring Nasmyth’s work, which is the best-known and most widely reproduced image of Rab, Rabbie, Robbie, Robyn or, as Americans are wont to call him, Bobby. Slightly more than a foot to my left but within grappling-to-the-ground distance, the tartan-trousered guard kept a hawk eye on me (actually, in the local parlance, it was a hawk eye the noo). He looked like a man who’s never lost a staring-out contest, and I got the idea several of his colleagues had been put on red alert, ready to pounce on his signal. But he needn’t have worried — I was there as a pilgrim, not a pilferer.

To break the ice I struck up a conversation, telling him I’d come from Dublin to see my hero.

“Dublin?” he said. “Lovely place, but it’s gotten awfy expensive, has it no?”

When I told him the price of a pint he nearly collapsed. Must be from Aberdeen, I thought. Having gained his confidence, he stood down the SWAT team and we got yapping.

“This is the picture they all come to see,” he said, and took the wind out of my sails by adding: “We’d an old gentleman in here the other day, an expat Scot, came all the way from New Zealand just to stand where you’re standing. From Dunedin, he was. A retired school teacher. Imagine that — 12,000 miles just to look at a portrait.”

My measly 143 miles from Belfast as the crow flies paled into pathetic insignificance next to my fellow pilgrim’s daunting journey which probably involved a couple of gruelling long-haul flights, but if that old gentleman had dropped by again I’d have shaken his hand and maybe even genuflected.

FAMOUS SON: Burns statue, Ayr

Dunedin — from the Gaelic Dùn Èideann for Edinburgh — has a statue of Burns in the central Octagon (his nephew, Presbyterian minister Thomas Burns, was one of the city’s founding fathers). Scotland has 19 statues, and there are 15 in the US, nine in Canada, eight in Australia and one in England, in London’s Victoria Embankment Gardens. With three others in New Zealand making a total of 56 worldwide, Burns has had more statues erected in his honour than any other poet in history. I’m not alone in placing Rabbie on a pedestal, which was the sculptors’ job anyway. In a 2009 survey he was named as the Greatest Scot Of All Time, narrowly pipping William “Braveheart” Wallace to the post from a shortlist of 10 that also included Robert the Bruce and, perversely, Billy Connolly and Doctor Who star David Tennant.

As I took a last look at the portrait, I noticed for the first time that what I’ve for so long taken to be a nascent smile might well be the beginnings of a smirk. Rabbie, who fathered 12 children — seven of them illegitimate — by four women, had as many critics as admirers during the 10 years from 1786 when his first volume of poems was published until his death from a rheumatic heart condition. There are still those who refer to him as “that damned whoremaster”, but his literary legacy — some of the world’s best-loved poems and songs that have been translated into most modern languages (and Klingon) and still sell in huge numbers in book and CD form — is good enough reason to smirk. As he told his wife, Jean, as he lay in his deathbed: “I’ll be better kent (known) a hunder years from now.”

WHERE IT BEGAN: Burns' Cottage in village of Alloway

A full-sized replica of the Ayrshire cottage in which Burns was born into abject poverty on January 25, 1759, can be visited in Atlanta, Georgia, but the real thing, all whitewashed walls and thatch, is in the village of Alloway, an hour’s car journey north of Stena’s Cairnryan port.

The highlight of the scenic drive along the coast-hugging A77 is the view on a clear day of the majestic and uninhabited island of Ailsa Craig, the plug of a volcano that last blew its top 500 million years ago. Being roughly the halfway point on the old ferry route between Belfast and Glasgow, it was nicknamed Paddy’s Milestone by generations of Irish labourers and potato pickers heading to Scotland in search of work. Rising out of the sea to a height of 340 metres 10 miles west of Girvan (where Mr. Chips serves the best fish suppers in Ayrshire), this former refuge for Catholics fleeing the 16th century Reformation which was also a prison colony in the 18th and 19th centuries is now a bird sanctuary for hundreds of thousands of gannets, kittiwakes and guillemots and a growing number of puffins.

It’s most famed, though, for the quarry that provides the rare Blue Hone granite known as Ailsite from which 70 per cent of the world’s curling stones are made, including those used by the gold medal-winning British women’s team at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah.

ROCK OF AGES: Volcanic isle of Ailsa Craig

One of the most-visited homes in Scotland, Burns’ Cottage is a humble, four-room residence comprising a kitchen, spence (parlour), barn and byre that was built by the poet’s father, William, in 1757. Just down the road is the £21 million Birthplace Museum that opened in December 2010 and houses more than 5,500 items of memorabilia plus many original manuscripts in Burns’ distinctive hand.

Nearby are the ruins and well-kept graveyard (where William is buried) of the reputedly haunted 16th century Alloway Auld Kirk that was the scene of the witches’ and warlocks’ dance — with music provided by the Devil himself — in Burns’ epic poem Tam o’ Shanter; and the medieval Brig o’ Doon, rebuilt in the 18th century, over which the terrified and rapidly sobering Tam fled the “hellish legion” on his grey mare, Meg. The bridge is overlooked by the Burns Monument which was paid for by public subscription, allegedly including donations from Aberdeen, and completed in 1823.

WITCHES' LAIR: Haunted Alloway Auld Kirk and graveyard

My trip was drawing to a close as I stepped off the train from Edinburgh in Liverpool, where I had one last pit stop in what had become a heroic journey — I was going to the Cavern Club in Mathew Street where, on the afternoon of Thursday, February 9, 1961 a local band called the Beatles who would become the heroes of millions played to a full house in the original building on the same site. The new Cavern Club, built using 15,000 bricks from the old one which was demolished in 1973 by British Rail (Boo! Hiss!), opened its doors in 1984 and is a thriving live music venue and one of Liverpool’s most popular tourist attractions.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best’s first lunchtime gig in the Cavern blew the audience away and earned them a regular booking. The line-up changed, of course, and by the time the band made the last of their 292 appearances there on Saturday, August 3, 1963 they had become the Fab Four of John, Paul, George and Ringo. Other Cavern regulars included Cilla Black, Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Swinging Blue Genes, Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas, The Merseybeats and The Searchers, but it was The Beatles who put the club and their home city on the musical map, triggering Beatlemania and leading a Liverpudlian takeover of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

BEST CELLAR: Music in Liverpool's new Cavern Club

I had a great night at the Cavern, but mindful of an early start the next morning when I had a date with a ferry down the Mersey and onward across the Irish Sea, I headed to bed. I’d followed in the footsteps of heroes Robert Burns and The Beatles and met a new one in plucky old soldier Tom. For someone who’s petrified of being punctured, I could only marvel at the courage of pierced lady Elaine. And now it was time to go home. Rabbie lamented in To A Mouse that “the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”, but as I boarded Stena Mersey at Birkenhead this second part of my ferry adventures had been free of the minor disasters that usually dog me on my travels. Suspiciously free. Arriving in Belfast bang on time and with an hour to kill, I popped into The Crown Bar for a pint. As beer lovers know, there’s no such thing as “a” pint, so I had two. And missed the last train to Dublin. Then a pal of mine walked in, we got talking and, before I knew it, I’d missed the last bus.

The taxi driver watched as I withdrew a hundred quid from the ATM outside the Europa Hotel. The meter was running. Ah, well.

●To book your crossing on Stena Line’s Irish Sea routes and for details of special money-saving fares see www.stenaline.ie, call 01 204 7777 or contact your travel agent. In the UK see www.stenaline.co.uk. Further information on visiting Scotland, Belfast and the west of Ireland can be found in other travel articles on this blog: The Most Faithful Little Dog That Ever Cocked A Leg, Scots Whey Hey, All Aboard As Titanic Gets Set To Sail Again, I Lost My Heart To A Galway Grill, The Movie That Put Ireland On The Tourist Map and Oh Mayo My.

●See also www.visitscotland.com, www.discovernorthernireland.comand www.discoverireland.ie

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Destination Austin: Franklin Barbecue

Brisket, sausage, potato salad, slaw, and a Big Red


On a dreary Wednesday morning I was sitting on metal patio furniture, hoping that the clouds above my head didn't bring rain. I was entering the second hour of my barbecue trials. Despite arriving at 9:30 in the morning, I wasn't first in line for a restaurant that didn't even open until 11:00. I wasn't surprised; I had done my research beforehand. You have to be prepared when you're pursuing the best barbecue in the country.

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The line at 10:30. Photo taken from my spot below the ramp.

Franklin Barbecue has been a gourmet press darling since its humble beginnings as a trailer in an East Austin parking lot in 2009. Since then, it has moved to a building off the 35 freeway. Every morning, besides Mondays when it is closed, Aaron Franklin gets up before dawn to prepare his daily ritual. While the restaurant is not a one-man operation, Franklin's involvement is critical, from stoking the flames of his hardwood smokers to carving up every single customer's order.


Aaron Franklin, proprietor, chef, and all-around nice guy

Because Franklin takes his time to chat up each of his customers, the line moves at a glacial pace. The restaurant's official hours are eleven until sold out. At this point, they don't bother removing the sold out signs anymore. If you're not already in line by eleven or twelve, you're going to have slim pickings of whatever meats are left, if any.


Finally at the front of the line

Around 11:30, I finally made it to the counter. As a Texas barbecue, Franklin's claim to fame is is brisket. Considering I had just done my Lockhart barbecue marathon the day before, I was hesitant to get more. But I had yet to try any Texas sausage.



At Franklin's suggestion, I got half fatty, half lean brisket. Keep in mind that lean is a relative term and does not imply any dryness or lack of flavor. The brisket was as good, if not slightly better than the brisket at Smitty's, my favorite of the Lockhart three. There is complexity to Franklin's barbecue that many places lack. While many barbecues have two or three flavor notes, the brisket at Franklin has a chorus. The sausage was phenomenal. I made very little progress cutting through the casing with my plastic knife, but when I finally punctured it, the juice squirted out from its cylindrical prison. I'm not sure what mix of meats went into that sausage and the seasonings were relatively simple. But the barbecuing process made it uniquely delicious. Franklin's also offers three signature barbecue sauces, but besides the chipotle flavored one, they weren't too notable.

I'll have to come back and try the pork ribs one day. The bit of pulled pork, donated to me by my line compatriot, was bland. The big question is whether I think Franklin Barbecue was worth the two hour wait. For those visiting Austin with time to spare, it is worth a free morning. It would take even longer to drive out to Lockhart.

Franklin Barbecue
franklinbarbecue.com
900 E. 11th Street
Austin, TX 78702
(512) 653-1187
$13 for a two-meat plate

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ISTANBUL: THE BAZAAR WORLD OF BELLY DANCING AND BOUZOUKIS BY THE BOSPHORUS

TIME TO GLOW: Twilight descends on magical Istanbul

My colleague was singing You And I by Lady Gaga while the house band — a fiddler, a fella banging the bejaysus out of a big bass drum and a whistling bouzouki player — accompanied her with what sounded suspiciously like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. At a nearby table four jolly, middle-aged Japanese women who were possibly deaf clapped along and took pictures as the courageous Catriona soldiered on through the cacophony being belted out behind her.

She’d been hauled on stage by the compere, a dead-ringer for Kojak with a line of patter as smooth as his bald head and a radio mic for a lollipop. He couldn’t have been cooler if he’d stepped outside into the bone-chilling Istanbul night. Snow was the last thing I’d been expecting, but the city on the Bosphorus wore a light, white coat, much like the sprinkling of icing-sugar on the Turkish delight, profiteroles, buns and multi-coloured sticky candies in so many shop windows.

If Catriona learned anything that evening, it was this: when the belly dancing has finished and the lads who’d rushed to occupy the front row seats retreat to the back as soon as the karaoke’s announced, DO NOT sit where they’d just been sitting. This is good advice for anyone visiting Istanbul who wants to avoid singing one song while the band plays another, though to deny the audience such a perverse pleasure would be a shame.

BRA-VO: Me and my colleague Mark with belly dancer

     I don’t know why it’s called belly dancing, because all the action was taking place north and south of the three double-jointed, long-haired and beautiful Turkish dancers’ midriffs. It was like watching jellies in an earthquake. First they fluttered their unfeasibly-long eyelashes, causing a draught that nearly blew out all the candles on the tables. Then their shoulders and arms joined in, rising and falling like waves and sending ripples outwards to their long-nailed fingertips. When the tremors reached their boobs, which were acting independently of each other in what must have been reinforced bras, I was reminded of a boxer launching a flurry of left-right jabs and upper-cuts. The hips came next, and that was when things went right off the Richter scale — their pelvises couldn’t have shaken more if they’d been digging up the pavement with a pneumatic drill. Belly dancing is mesmerising, and you can see it in any of umpteen clubs and restaurants every night.

Earlier, while wandering through the Grand Bazaar, I was accosted by a one-legged man on crutches who was selling Turkish flags.

“I’m all right for Turkish flags, thanks,” I told him, so he showed me a selection of Zippo lighters, then some gaudy ‘gold’ rings. Seeing he was getting nowhere, he looked around and lowered his voice.

“I have Viagra,” he whispered.

“Cheerio!” I said, and scarpered.

DELIGHTFUL: Various flavours of Turkish delight and
other types of sticky confectionery in the Spice Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar is a tourist trap in more ways than one, so go armed with a map before entering this enormous indoor labyrinth of more than 4,000 shops lining 18 narrow streets or you’ll end up hopelessly, and in my case happily, lost. And be prepared for a relentless assault on the senses — the sights, sounds and scents will leave you giddy. If you’re a skinflint you can easily consume the equivalent of a three-course lunch by accepting the titbits offered by shopkeepers as you do the rounds, though Turkish delight for starter, main and dessert will leave you giddy too. Churchill and Napoleon loved the stuff and got through boxes of it like Ronald Reagan got through jelly beans, and Picasso pigged out on it to help him concentrate while painting, which may help explain his questionable grasp of anatomy.

Turkish delight has been around since the 16th century, but it was confectioner Haci Bekir’s introduction of beet sugar as a sweetener (honey and molasses had previously been used) and corn starch instead of flour in the late 18th century that produced the delicacy we know today. A wide range of confectionery is still made and sold in Bekir’s original shop, which he opened in 1777 in Istanbul’s Bahcekapi district. In the early 1800s an English tourist popped in and left with several boxes of Bekir’s famed jelly cubes, known in Turkey as lokum and available in flavours including strawberry, lemon, orange, mint and rose, which she took home and shared with her family and friends. In doing so, she introduced Turkish delight to western Europe and gave it its name. Bekir’s descendants run the business he established 235 years ago and are the proud owners of a royal warrant granted in perpetuity to their renowned ancestor — the sultan was a sucker for sweets and made him Chief Confectioner to the Ottoman Court.

BAARGAINS GALORE: Buy souvenirs in the Grand Bazaar

Built between 1455 and 1461 and rebuilt and repaired several times since following earthquakes, the Grand Bazaar is the place to go for silk scarves, amber jewellery, kilim rugs, spices and the ubiquitous Turkish delight. One trader attracting a lot of chuckles, but no custom, from passing tourists was trying to entice them into his shop with the promise of “poison for the mother-in-law”. As his window display consisted of nothing but blades — everything from barber’s razors to secateurs to machetes — he couldn’t have been expecting many souvenir hunters. I was tempted to ask if he had any cut-price scissors, but thought better of it.

Don’t be shy about haggling, as it’s expected — prices in the Grand Bazaar are pitched high and open to negotiation — but be gracious. With a little bit of good-humoured huffing and puffing and rolling of the eyes you can expect to get at least a third, sometimes more, off the original quote. It’s a different story in the less blingy but no less colourful or noisy nearby Spice Bazaar, where the locals go to stock their cupboards with everyday aromatic cooking ingredients that Western visitors find exotic. The Spice Bazaar has its souvenir and jewellery shops too, but the prices on the labels are what you should pay.

VAC AND FORWARD: A cleaner, just visible, vacuums
the enormous prayer carpet in the Blue Mosque, below

I’ve no idea what the custodians of the Blue Mosque pay the guy who vacuums the carpet that covers the vast prayer area, but even with overtime it can’t be anywhere near enough. Next time you moan about doing the housework, spare a thought for the fella who walks countless kilometres every day behind his hoover. Visitors must remove their shoes before entering the mosque and carry them in plastic bags provided at the entrance. This can be a terrible distraction — while most people were wandering around looking up at the beautifully painted interiors of the main dome and cascading semi-domes, I looked down occasionally, trying to spot toes poking through holes in socks.

DOME-INATING: The magnificent cascading domes in the Blue Mosque

Built between 1609 and 1616 on the orders of Sultan Ahmet I, the mosque gets its “blue” tag from the 21,000 Iznik tiles that adorn the walls. On completion it sported six minarets instead of the usual two or four, and its splendour caused uproar throughout the Muslim world. It was only when Ahmet sent his architect, Mehmet Aga, to Mecca to add a seventh minaret to the sacred Masjid al-Haram (Grand Mosque) that the outrage over the sultan’s perceived arrogance and sacrilege was assuaged. Ahmet, who was born in 1590, ascended the throne at the age of 14 as the 14th Ottoman sultan and ruled for 14 years. He’s buried in a mausoleum on the north side of the mosque with his second wife Kosem, who was strangled in the harem in Topkapi Palace, and his sons Sultan Osman II, Sultan Murat IV and Prince Beyazit, who was murdered by Murat.

If you’re lucky enough to be in the mosque at the right moment you’ll witness a light show like no other when the sun pierces the stained glass windows and casts the most amazing rainbow-hued rays. None of the original Venetian glass remains, but the effect from the more recent replacement panels is still astounding.

●Blue Mosque open 9am to 6pm every day (closed to non-worshippers during five-times daily prayers), admission free.

SOPHIA, SO GOOD: The Hagia Sophia Museum and,
below, looking up at the massive central dome

Step outside, stroll across Sultanahmet Square and enter the Hagia Sophia (Church of the Divine Wisdom) and you’re in for another treat. I’ve searched, and failed miserably, to find a worthy superlative for this almost 1,500-year-old behemoth of a building that’s considered the masterpiece of Byzantine architecture. Commissioned by Emperor Justinian the Great, it was first a cathedral (the biggest in the world for 1,000 years until Seville’s Saint Mary of the Sea, where Christopher Columbus is buried, was consecrated in 1507), then a mosque and, since 1935, a museum, and was completed in 532 after five years of construction that involved the labour of 10,000 men.

The main feature of the Hagia Sophia, and the main reason visitors keep apologising for bumping into each other (they should rename it the Hagia So Sorry), is the massive central dome — the fourth biggest in the world after Saint Paul’s in London, Saint Peter’s in Rome and the Duomo in Florence — that appears to hover above the nave thanks to the 40 clear glass windows around its base. Equally impressive are the fabulous mosaics on the walls depicting Christ, the Virgin and Child, saints and sultans, many of which are so detailed that at first glance they appear to be paintings, even when viewed up close.

HERO: Turkey's first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The Hagia Sophia opened as a museum in 1935, four years after being secularised by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey and its first president who abolished the caliphate and whose photo is to be seen everywhere, indoors and out. If any man in recent history epitomised hero worship it was Ataturk, whose wide-ranging economical, social, educational, cultural and even sartorial reforms based on western mores were welcomed by the majority, except wearers of the fez, which he banned in 1925. Civil servants, however, happily went along with their Panama-wearing chief’s insistence that they don fedoras or derbies.

●Hagia Sophia open 9am to 7pm, except Monday, admission 20 lira (€8.50).

The Basilica Cistern, a couple of minutes’ walk from the Hagia Sophia and completed in the same year, is the biggest of several reservoirs beneath Istanbul and featured in the 1963 James Bond movie From Russia With Love in which 007 (Sean Connery) is sent to the city to help Soviet consular clerk Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) defect to the west. It was also a location in the 2009 crime mystery The International, starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts.

WET TILL YOU SEE THIS: Some of the 336 columns that
support the sixth century Basilica Cistern beneath the city

The cavernous cistern, which can hold 100 million litres of water and was fed by a series of tunnels and aqueducts running 20 kilometres from the Belgrade Forest north of the city, is Istanbul’s weirdest tourist attraction. It’s not every day you pay to visit a subterranean water depository, but this is fascinating, not least because of the forest of 336 eight-metre high marble and granite columns with Ionic, Corinthian and Doric capitals that support the ceiling and were brought from throughout the Byzantine empire. Amber lighting, classical music and the echoing plink-plonk of dripping water create a calming atmosphere away from the hustle and bustle of life above ground, but there’s still fun to be had — for €5 you can dress up as a caliph or a concubine and have a quirky souvenir photo taken.

●Basilica Cistern open 9am to 7.30pm every day, admission 10 lira (€4.25).

THREE 'WISE' MEN: Me and colleagues Mark and JP
dress up and pose for a photo in the Basilica Cistern

Close by is the Hippodrome, which in its heyday seated 100,000 spectators — a quarter of the city’s then population — who came to watch chariot races in which two and four-horse teams galloped hell for leather down one side and up the other for seven laps. Built in 203 by Roman Emperor Septimus Severus, the Hippodrome was the equivalent of today’s biggest soccer stadiums, the place where all strata of society gathered to cheer on either of two teams. The class distinctions were acute, with the Blues representing the politically conservative and religiously orthodox upper and middle classes while the Greens were favoured by the radical riff raff. Little is left of the 480-metre-long and 120-metre-wide track with a spina — a sort of motorway central reservation that was adorned with columns and obelisks from Greece and Egypt — down the middle, but its footprint still gives visitors a sense of its size and importance.

The Hippodrome was the scene of one of the most violent episodes in Istanbul’s history when, during the week-long Nika Revolt in January 532 that was sparked by festering resentment at crippling taxes, Justinian’s royal palace came under siege and half the city —including the Hagia Sophia — was destroyed or damaged by fire. Fearing he would be overthrown, the emperor brought the uprising to a bloody end when he sent his troops and a force of mercenaries into the Hippodrome where 30,000 Greens supporters had gathered and put them all to the sword.

DROME MAJOR: The 3,500-year-old Egyptian Obelisk
was the major and oldest feature of the Hippodrome

Only three ancient monuments remain of the many that lined the spina. The 20-metre red granite Egyptian Obelisk, made around 1500BC, stood in Karnak, just outside Luxor, until 357 when the Emperor Constantine had it removed to Alexandria to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his rule. In 390 Theodosius I had it brought to Istanbul (then Constantinople) where it was placed on a five-metre marble pedestal whose four sides are decorated with scenes depicting Theodosius watching the obelisk’s erection, viewing a chariot race, preparing to honour the winner with a laurel wreath and receiving the submission of the Barbarians. The inscriptions in Latin and Byzantine Greek on the east and west faces of the pedestal’s base use a lot of fanciful words to say “this column was erected in a month”, though the Latin cites 30 days while the Greek puts it at 30. On the four sides of the obelisk itself, which was made for Pharaoh Tutmoses III, are hieroglyphs celebrating his victory in battle at the Euphrates in 1450BC.

The five-metre bronze Serpentine Column which was brought from Delphi in 324 looks like something you’d see in a modern art gallery, but it dates from 479BC and was made to commemorate the Greeks who gave the Persians a bloody nose at the Battle of Plataea in the same year. Two of the heads of the three intertwined serpents are long lost, but one is on display in the nearby Museums of Archaeology.

ALL OF A TWIST: Remains of the
Serpentine Column with Egyptian
Obelisk in the background

Of unknown date, though probably erected in the fourth century, the 32-metre Column of Constantine Porphyrogenitus is named after the Byzantine emperor who restored it in 944 when its four faces were covered with bronze relief panels. The panels, celebrating the victories of the emperor’s grandfather, Basilios I, were looted and melted down to make coins in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade when the Venetians sacked the city. Unlike the single-piece and glass-smooth Egyptian Obelisk, this column is made of 300,000 roughly-hewn limestone blocks around an iron core, and in its unclad state it was routinely climbed by teenage boys as a test of their bravery and to show off to young women. Unfortunately, falling for a girl in those days — sometimes from a great height — invariably resulted in broken bones as well as broken hearts.

Topkapi Palace, built between 1459 and 1465 on the elevated Seraglio Point promontory under the rule of Mehmet II, was the main residence of the Ottoman sultans until 1853 when Abdul Mecit I abandoned it in favour of the European-style Dolmabahce Palace. In 1924, Topkapi opened as a museum and is today one of the highlights of a visit to Istanbul, not least for the treasures, holy relics and lavish costumes on display. Curiously, the sleeves on some regal tunics are two metres long, so the sultans must have been the star players on the palace basketball team, the Harem Globetrotters.

TOP ATTRACTION: Topkapi Palace from the Bosphorus

Rather than a single grand structure, Topkapi is a somewhat disharmonious ensemble of mainly two-storey buildings, courtyards, gardens and pavilions filled with birdsong and the sound of tinkling fountains. As each new sultan ascended the throne he expanded the palace, and further additions were commissioned to celebrate battle victories and, no doubt, match-winning slam dunks. As the empire grew, so too did the palace, especially during the reign of Suleyman (1520 to 1560) who wanted Topkapi to reflect his increasing power and influence. Despite the absence of the symmetry seen in so many royal residences it is nevertheless a masterful mix, and at least three hours should be allowed to make the most of what will be a memorable visit.

Foremost among the treasures on display are the 86-carat Spoonmaker’s Diamond and the Topkapi Dagger. Legend has it that the former, which is drop-shaped and surrounded by 49 other diamonds, was found in a 17th century rubbish dump and came into the possession of a scrap dealer who sold it for three spoons. The 35-centimetre curved dagger, in a gold sheath studded with precious stones, has three large emeralds from the Somondoco mines in Colombia on one side of the handle and a diamond encrusted chain. Sent as a gift by Sultan Mahmut I to the Shah of Persia in 1747, it never reached him — Nadir Shah was assassinated by one of his bodyguards and it was returned to the palace. The dagger is the subject of the 1964 heist movie Topkapi starring Peter Ustinov (he won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor), Melina Mercouri, Maximilian Schell and Robert Morley which inspired the long-running TV series Mission: Impossible.

Relics on display include a mantle worn by the Prophet Mohammed, hairs from his beard and a tooth, two of his swords and an impression of his footprint. Visitors can also see a case containing a hand, arm and pieces of the skull of John the Baptist, Moses’ rod (the one that turned into a snake, not the one he used for fishing).

●Topkapi Palace Museum open 9am to 7pm, except Monday, admission 20 lira (€8.50) plus 15 lira (€6.35) to visit the harem.

HOUSE MUCH? Some of the multi-million dollar riverside
homes, called yalis, along the Bosphorus shore

The Bosphorus, which splits Istanbul in two and separates Europe from Asia while connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, is one of the busiest waterways in the world and one of the most difficult to navigate because of the currents and several blind spots. However, visitors who embark on a sightseeing cruise on any of the scores of public ferries or private-hire pleasure craft are in the safe hands of skippers and crew who go up and down here several times a day.

There’s as much to see from the water as there is on land, plus the thoroughly satisfying bonus of seeing those appalling bores who never tire of boasting about how much they sold their houses for being stunned into wide-mouthed silence on learning the asking prices for many of the waterside properties. Ten million dollars will buy you a baronial castle with a couple of thousand acres of grouse moor in the Scottish Highlands; for $20 million you’d get a salmon run plus a team of ghillies and the right to call yourself a laird thrown in; but some of the wooden-panelled shoreline homes known as yalis along the Bosphorus are valued at upwards of $50 million, so unless your surname’s Abramovich, Onassis or Rockefeller you can keep on dreaming.

●Half-day Bosphorus cruises operate every day, from 70 lira/€30 (children 48 lira/€20). Full-day tours including lunch/dinner and refreshments also available.

SULTANS OF BLING: The fabulous Dolmabahce Palace
and, below, the bed in which the revered Ataturk died

The 285-room Dolmabahce Palace is the star of the show — or rather, the shore — when you go cruising. Built between 1843 and 1856 by Abdul Mecit I when the Ottoman Empire was in decline, it was financed with loans from foreign banks and occupied by six sultans until the establishment of the republic. A mix of oriental and western styles, it contains more than 600 paintings and the world’s biggest Bohemian crystal chandelier, weighing 4.5 tonnes and containing 70 lamps, which was a gift from Britain’s Queen Victoria. The room and the bed in which Ataturk died are preserved exactly as they were, and the hands on the clock have remained fixed at 9.05am, the hour when he drew his last breath at the age of 57 on November 10, 1938.

The palace can only be viewed as part of a guided tour. Two official tours run throughout the day, one taking in the Selamlik containing the state rooms and the Ceremonial Hall, and the other the harem. The first is the best, though there’s nothing to stop you doing both.

●Dolmabahce Palace open 8.30am to 4.30pm, except Monday and Thursday, admission 10 lira/€4.25 (harem), 15 lira/€6.35 (Selamlik), 20 lira/€8.50 (both).

Other places to visit, depending on your schedule, are the Archaeology Museums, the Galata Tower for panoramic views, Miniaturk (a park displaying scale models of famous buildings from Turkey and throughout the world), the Toy Museum, the Ural Ataman Classical Automobiles Museum and the Rumeli Fortress Museum where open air concerts are staged in summer.

Mosques, monuments and museums aside, simply being in Istanbul — wandering the bustling boulevards, streets and alleyways of this remarkable multi-cultural metropolis where east meets west and modern meets ancient — is a sensory experience that almost has the skin tingling with excitement. Granted, the snow and sleet and biting winds of February had my skin tingling with the cold and my hands turning as blue as those Iznik tiles, but it was a small price to pay for the privilege of spending time in the city that 14 million people call home. If it can get a frozen thumbs-up in the middle of winter, imagine how much more enjoyable it must be on a warm and sunny summer’s day.

Nothing, though, will ever come close to the enjoyment of listening to karaoke queen Catriona trying to compete with Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious — even though the sound of it was something quite atrocious.

BRIDGE OF SIZE: One of the two soaring suspension
bridges that carry traffic across the Bosphorus

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