An unexpected and delightful side to one of the world’s most fascinating cities.
We made our decision to travel to Istanbul at the last minute, the last second in fact. I thought we’d found a house-sit in a quaint village south of London for the majority of January. We’d already told our friends we were coming and we’d looked at flights. Then we Skyped our potential host and watched as she mouth kissed her cat before telling us she expected any house-sitters to do the same. Mouth. Kissed. That’s right. This wasn’t some innocent peck, or a cute kitty snoot-boop. This was something the Farrelly Brothers wouldn’t even put in one of their movies. Picture it being as obscene as you can imagine, times it by ten and then you got it. (Yes, that’s the exact face I pulled too.)
Don’t get me wrong. I love cats. Adore them. It’s one of the reasons I house sit around the world with my husband, Tony, meeting all the cats we can — and cat loving (within reason) humans. But I don’t mouth kiss cats. I also don’t house sit homes that have bowls of congealed cat tuna nestled in the covers of the bed we’re supposed to be sleeping in, and giant piles of unwashed clothing scattered everywhere. Needless to say, we didn’t accept the sit.
This left us in a quandary. Where to go? With so little time to plan, we decided to book an AirBnb. But where? I checked flights and saw that the cheapest location was Istanbul. I’d always wanted to go, but didn’t know a thing about the place except what I’d read in the odd novel or seen in James Bond movies. After one look at the price of the AirBnbs (ridiculously cheap) and the weather (mild for European winter) we booked a three week stay.
It’s great to arrive in a new place with zero expectations. It means you can be pleasantly surprised, and Istanbul has so-far turned out to be one of the best places I’ve visited. Why? Multiple reasons — most of them the ones that anyone will tell you: The coffee is out-of-this-world good, the food is exceptional, the cultural sites are beautiful, the people are welcoming and the shopping is ridiculously cheap and so diverse in unique merchandise.
But the one thing that I didn’t know about was the cats. Istanbul is a city of cats. And in saying that I’m not talking about bedraggled moggies, huddled on street corners looking like they’re on their last legs. I’m talking well-fed-to-the-point-of-fat, content, healthy cats that roam everywhere. They hang out in cafes, they perch on sunny steps, they chill out in barber shops and they look at you imperiously from record store windows. They’re all shapes and sizes. Some are long-haired and fluffy, demanding a pat from any passerby, some are short-haired and stocky and seem to enjoy just being proximate to humans, some are muscled and feisty, prowling the streets with an air of fearless ownership I’ve never seen in a street stray. And the locals seem to love them.
Everywhere you go there are little custom-made cat homes set on footpaths, generous piles of kibble left in doorways and water dishes that seem to be always topped-up. There’s cat graffiti everywhere, cafes named after cats, posters with cats on them and little signs saying “I love cats” here and there.
I walked past the Greek embassy this morning and right in front of the doorway was a ginormous ginger tom, happily chowing down on what looked like prime chicken breast. Over at the Russian Embassy on busy Istiklal Street, there’s another long-haired tom who alternates between chilling with the heavily armed embassy guards and hanging by the nearby kebab shop, giving the patrons a piercing “I will eat your left-overs” look. It’s impossible not to smile when you see him.
Curious about this love of felines I did a bit of research, (which involved visiting multiple excellent cafes and asking about their resident furry friends) and it turns out that cats are considered a sacred species in Islam and that they’ve been around the city since the Ottoman Empire traded with Egypt. The thing that I found the sweetest was that a number of cafes around Beyoğlu — a thriving inner-city suburb — donate a part, or all of their tips to caring for the cats in their neighbourhood. That’s some cat loving I can get behind.
A few days into our stay, we did a tour of the Grand Bazaar and Süleymaniye Mosque with an excellent local tour guide, Heval. Amidst all the fascinating facts about the city’s history, the detours down ancient alleys, eating amazing food and seeing all the wares in the Bazaar, the most fun and memorable bit was scooting off into tiny side streets to meet Heval’s favourite cats. His happiness in greeting an old feline friend he hadn’t seen for a while was contagious and cemented the day as one of the best tours I’ve done in a city.
We house sit mainly because we love animals, and after a year of travel, we’ve noticed we usually don’t enjoy an AirBnb stay as much because of the lack of animal company. We haven’t felt that once in Istanbul. Here, we are definitely not short of furry friends.
Last night we decided to visit a small side-alley cafe near Galata Tower for a delicious gözleme only to find the prime position under the heater was taken up by a cat so silver and fluffy she didn’t look real. We took a seat next to her, because cat, and made our order. Moments later another tortoiseshell girl tottered along and with little introduction, she jumped onto my lap and perched there, contentedly purring with the air of someone who’d moved in for the night. Seconds later the silver one was sitting on Tony’s lap with a sense of imperious ownership. We ended up staying in the cafe longer than we intended, and ordering way more food than we needed, because cat. And then, when we both made to gently shoo our new friends off, we were given simultaneous grumbles before both cats jumped onto the warm seats we’d left behind. I’m choosing to believe it was because they were already missing us, rather than embracing a human’s warmth on a very chilly night.
Walking back to our cozy little AirBnb, I decided that this was the kind of cat loving I can get behind. Adoration and mutual respect. And no mouth kissing in sight!
