The Kindness of Strangers - again

We first wrote about this topic a few years ago, when we visited Orvieto, a small hilltop town in Umbria.  You can read about it here.

Now we are of course in Istanbul and once again our gobs are smacked by similar generosity.  To start at the beginning, several months ago I began chatting online with a lady on Instagram, whom I shall call B for the purposes of protecting her privacy.  We were chatting about travel after I complimented her on her wonderful photos of Turkey. After a time, we started emailing each other because the Instagram posts were too lengthy, then became Facebook friends as well. It seemed that we were of similar ages and stages of life and both very interested in chatting about travel, cooking and of course our children.  B lives in Istanbul, which I hadn't known to begin with, but as our friendship evolved and I said that we would be visiting Istanbul, she indicated that she was keen to meet up. We told friends and family about this "situation" with my online friend wanting to meet us and to be honest, they warned us that not everything is always as it seems, and we should exercise caution.  I had a good feeling, though, and hoped that I was right. B really was going to be as nice as she seemed to be online.

B is delightful! Truly delightful.  On Saturday she came to our hotel bearing gifts - gifts, and more gifts. Exceedingly generous gifts, at that. Necklaces that she had made for me in exactly the right colours that she thought would suit me, an absolutely divine silk shawl in a stunning shade of green, even gifts from her daughter, to welcome us to Turkey. I was speechless.  B had travelled into the centre of Istanbul on a Saturday afternoon by bus and tram, a journey of one hour, to meet us AND she had brought gifts. How do you thank someone for that?

Anyway, we began our excursion; firstly B took us to a restaurant for a lunch of kofte (Turkish meatballs), then on to the magnificent Gülhane Park where after strolling through the gorgeous botanical gardens we drank tea in the tea garden overlooking the Bosphorus River.  We talked and talked like old friends - B has an excellent command of English, which is just as well, given that my Turkish is limited to "Merhaba!" (Hello!)

We arranged to meet up on the following day, Sunday, with her husband, S, to be included in the next adventure.  He had been working on Saturday but wanted to meet us and extend further hospitality! 

We firstly visited the magnificent Dolmabahçe Palace and Harem, a stunningly beautiful Baroque palace completed in 1856 for the Ottoman Sultans and their wives and women.  The richness of the decorations, the exquisitely painted ceilings and magnificent woven carpets are all exactly as you would expect was befitting for the royal order of residents in the palace. Photographs do not do it any justice but I have included a couple because what's a blog without a few photos, after all? The chandeliers and crystal balustrades of the staircase were simply glorious, but you will have to visit and see them for yourself!

Our next stop was a delicious lunch at the Malta Köskü in the Yildiz Palace. This is no ordinary kiosk, although Köskü does literally translate to that English word - have a quick look at the main photo on this website to get an idea of the grandness of this establishment, once the hunting lodge connected to the palace and now the location for many wedding parties (we counted four brides while we were there).

We continued on to do a tour of Yildiz Palace, a vast complex of former imperial Ottoman pavilions and villas used as the Sultan's residence and for visiting dignitaries from other countries (the German Chancellor Kaiser Wilhelm stayed there, as did Nicolae Ceausescu and more recently Bill Clinton).

After that, we headed back to the car to return to the hotel - our Turkish hosts were not quite done with the hosting yet, though, as we were "forced" to stop at a cafe on the way home, for iced coffee and pastries.

So, what do you make of that? Perfect strangers become perfect friends. We felt very blessed. We intend to catch up with B and S on our return to Istanbul in a couple of weeks.

D1