The greyish colors of the sunset quickly changed the images I was perceiving on my first night out in Istanbul; from a lively, bustling and colorful city, I started to see a still lively, but much more melancholic side of the city.

These first impressions would stick with me during the entire journey, shaping my image of Istanbul and its inhabitants. Don't know how or why, but the ambiance here stretches from vibrant and energetic to lonely and gloomy in a blink of an eye. However, both atmospheres that coexist here were so incredibly comforting to me.

A row of wooden houses in pastel colors were blocking the last sunbeams from the dark side street we were walking down. To one side of the path, improvised art galleries in empty storehouses, soft wood falling apart and turkish flags hanging side to side with portraits of young girls in Ottoman-style costumes and cats. To the other, our salvation.

We were so hungry that we sat down at the Gülhane Sur Café, the first restaurant we saw during that stroll close to the grounds of Topkapi Palace. The place presented itself as really creative: it wasn't a common restaurant with tables put together in a regular layout. It was a 

staggered set of benches arranged in a very quaint way, adorned with turkish-style lamps.


We sat down in one of the benches and the waiter immediately came to us with the menu. We decided to order a water pipe (or hookah) with our meal and before we even got to order, the young  guy told us they only had one item of the list. So we had Gözleme, which is a savoury traditional turkish pastry dish filled with various toppings.

After we ate our cheese Gözleme, my brother and me smoked from the water pipe in an endless conversation about arts, our lives and the city we were at.
 We then realised it was getting darker and we still had to find our way back to Cihangir, on the other side of the European part of Istanbul.

Gülhane Sur Café

So we headed to the Gülhane tram station and waited for the next car that would take us to Findikli, from where we would take the funicular to Taksim square. Except for the fact that the tram stopped at  Eminönü station with no explanation at all.

This will be the subject of another post, but I woud like to finish this entry with the last photo I took from the tram station. This image not only represents a moment I spent in a neighbourhood,it transmits the ambiance of the city during nightfall.

It's part of this double identity that I can't put into words, but that works on such a magical way that is somewhat hard to explain. It's how Ahmet Rasim once wrote: "The beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy". I haven't found a better way to describe what I felt when I saw the neon lights mirrored in the almost empty cobblestone streets of Gülhane.

Nightfall in Gülhane

Astrid.

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