BPlease don’t tell anyone else, concerned parts of the family don’t need to know: My wife and I are flying to Istanbul soon. 2G, boosted, just not recovered from wanderlust. Booked three places on the plane, a fantastic apartment with a panoramic view of the Bosphorus is waiting in Istanbul, which one was reluctant to leave even in times before Corona. It’s been two years since we were there last.
An absolute rarity: the legendary “Schmeinsteiger” jersey from the author’s collection
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Image: Michael Eder
And as they say, you can even ride a bike in Istanbul now. So move through the huge city in a sporty way. “Isbike” is the name of the app, and if you can believe it, there are now rental bikes available in many parts of the city that can be activated with a few clicks. A few years ago we were still amazed by aliens in Istanbul when we pedaled through the old town on our bikes, uphill, downhill, between taxis and other motorized amateur racing drivers.
In fact, we had found a bike rental shop in a car hole, as exotic as if you could find a rental shop for diving equipment on the Zugspitze. Cycling wasn’t just a pleasure back then, but who knows, maybe you’ll get a taste for it in Istanbul. There should now be a couple of bike paths, along the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, we’ll see. Cycling in Turkey is not entirely without tradition. A country tour, the Tour of Turkey, has been on the cycling calendar of professionals since 1968, which is currently more important than the Germany tour.
Cycling is on the rise. Not only in green cargo bike Germany. In many metropolises around the world, too, it is considered to be a future remedy for clogged traffic arteries. In New York you can make pretty good progress in Manhattan too, and you can drive eleven miles from the Bronx to Battery Park on mostly well-developed paths along the Hudson. The bike is also en vogue in Paris. Even in London, it is unbeatable on short and medium-sized routes since the double-decker buses officially share their lanes with cyclists.
Let’s see how it works in Istanbul. Whether we can do a tour from the Galata Quarter to the Grand Bazaar. That would save us the bad Corona feeling of having to take the tram. We have only fond memories of the Grand Bazaar. There are, for example, super cheap soccer jerseys as souvenirs.
A jersey of the German national team, number seven, will not be forgotten. Price the equivalent of 2.50 euros, with a wonderful print on the back, which, however, confirmed the suspicion among notorious skeptics that it was not an original. But it’s still my favorite jersey to this day: it says “Schmeinsteiger” on the back.
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