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Our tours have now taken us through nearly every part of the city and to most of its historical monuments. But, as we have perhaps learned on our strolls, Istanbul is much more than just an inhabited museum, for the old town has a beauty and fascination that go quite beyond its history and its architecture. One is apt to feel this when seated at a çayevi or meyhane in a sun-dappled square, or while taking one’s ease in a vine-shaded café beside the Bosphorus. Little has been said of the Stamboullus themselves, but the visitor will surely have experienced innumerable examples of their grave friendliness and unfailing hospitality. Much of the pleasure of visiting or living in this city derives from the warm and relaxed company of its residents. “Hoş geldiniz!” (Welcome), they say to the stranger who arrives in their city or their home; and when one leaves one is sent off with a “Güle Güle!” (Go with Smiles), as if to lessen the inevitable sadness of departure. But how can one not feel sad when leaving this beautiful city.
But before we leave let us take one last stroll through Stamboul, to visit an enchanting place which we have somehow missed on our earlier tours. This is the venerable district of Kum Kapı, which lies at the foot of the Second and Third Hills along the Marmara shore. There are no monuments here of any historic or architectural importance, just a wonderful old Stamboul neighbourhood. The harbour of Kum Kapı, the ancient Kontoscalion, is the last of the Byzantine ports still left on the Marmara coast of the city. It is always filled with picturesque caiques and the quayside is often carpeted with brilliantly-dyed fishing nets spread there to be dried and mended. The fish market there is one of the liveliest and most colourful in the city; the shouts and cries of the fishmongers are liable to be in any of several languages: Turkish, Greek, Armenian and even Laz, raucous and ribald in all four.
From the port a cobbled road leads down under the railway line and through the now almost vanished remnants of the ancient Porta Kontoscalion. In Turkish times this was known as Kum Kapı, the Sand Gate, whose name now survives in that of the surrounding neighbourhood. Up until the beginning of this century one could still see on the tower to the left of this gate the imperial monogram and coat of arms of Andronicus II Palaeologus (r. 1282–1328).
A short distance along we come to the picturesque village square of Kum Kapı. (Another discovery of our strolls is that Istanbul is really a collection of villages, usually clustering around a mosque or a market square such as the one we see here.) The square has an old street fountain in its centre and is surrounded by the stalls and barrows of a fish and fruit and vegetable market, as well as several excellent fish restaurants. (Up until the early 1970s one of these restaurants was called Cansız Balık, the Dead Fish, but its one-eyed Armenian owner was persuaded that the sign frightened away customers and so he has changed its name.) When we have had our fill and more we can sit by the window and watch the infinitely varied procession of local life passing through this most colourful square. At times like this we feel that the old town, for all its faults and flaws, has managed to retain some of the humane qualities of communal life and rich connections with the past that have been lost in most modern cities. In that mood we think of our own strolls through Stamboul and of the dear friends who were our companions here, many of them now departed and some gone forever. We think too of Evliya Çelebi, who has been our companion-guide for so long, and wonder what he might say if he could once again walk through the streets of his beloved town, so changed but so much the same. Knowing him as we do, we imagine that he might repeat the words of his contemporary, the historian Solak Dede, whom Evliya quotes in the Seyahatname: “‘Oh, my God,’ said Solak Dede after finishing his Description of Constantinople, ‘let this town flourish till the end of time!’”