Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [235]
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Orient Express
The Orient Express is the long-distance passenger train operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits whose end points were Paris and Istanbul. Early routes forced passengers to disembark and take sections of the journey by boat, and the first train to make the entire journey arrived at Istanbul’s Sirkeci Station on August 12, 1888. Sirkeci remained the easternmost stop until the final run, on May 19, 1977. In the 1930s the rail line acquired its reputation for luxury and exclusivity. In later years, due to border closings between countries, the Iron Curtain, and Communist nations replacing the original Wagon-Lits cars with their own carriages, the line simply couldn’t continue as it once had. Today the service runs only from Strasbourg to Vienna, and in 1982, the Venice-Simplon Orient Express was established as a private venture, running from London to Venice, and it’s quite expensive.
After the original Orient Express was created, the Compagnie des Wagons-Lits also built the Pera Palas hotel. Train travelers were transferred directly from Sirkeci to the Pera Palas, built in 1892. The hotel is in an architecturally distinctive building and I feel fortunate to have visited its lobby before it closed for what was universally regarded as an overdue renovation (it’s due to reopen in late 2009). Its list of illustrious visitors is long, and it remains the “oldest European hotel of Turkey.”
Sirkeci Station is beautiful and should definitely be a part of an Istanbul itinerary. It was designed by Prussian architect August Jachmund, and he included medieval rose windows, Mughal-inspired touches, and a Parisian domed roof in the structure. Though the restaurant is not known for stellar food, a meal there would be enjoyable. At night, the pink exterior is lit up and is quite magical. Istanbul’s other train station, Haydarpaşa, is on the Asian side, and as a writer for Time Out Istanbul recently noted, “Although the days of twentieth-century intrigue are long gone, passing Istanbul’s Asian train terminal on a foggy night is all the experience necessary to recapture the gloom and magic of old Stamboul.” Most unfortunately, the future of both stations is yet to be decided: due to the Marmaray Project (see page 562), developers have presented plans to convert them into shopping centers or hotels and to build skyscrapers around them. Stay tuned—and visit the stations and take pictures.
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Pierre Loti
Born Louis Marie-Julien Viaud in Rochefort, France, Pierre Loti is far more associated with Turkey—there is a famous painting by Henri Rousseau in the collection of the Kunsthaus in Zurich of Loti sporting a fez, and in the Istanbul neighborhood of Eyüp there is the Café Pierre Loti, mentioned earlier. Loti was a sailor and writer, and his pseudonym is said to derive from his extreme shyness in his early life, when friends called him Le Loti, after an Indian flower that loves to blush unseen. In 1876, he wrote Aziyadé, a novel that, like many of his other works, is part autobiographical (he was known to have had a Turkish mistress). In 1891, he was inducted into the Académie Française. As Barbara Hodgson says in Trading in Memories: Travels Through a Scavenger’s Favorite Places, Loti lived until 1923, but “he remained firmly locked in the nineteenth century.” Loti’s home, preserved as a museum in Rochefort, apparently includes a Chinese pavilion, a Japanese pagoda, and a Turkish salon … all in all a true Orientalist fantasy. Contemporary fans may join La Societé des amis de Pierre Loti (pierreloti.org). New York-area readers are lucky to now have the Pierre Loti Wine Bar (53 Irving Place / 212 777 5684 / pierreloti winebar.com), which opened