Istanbul to Ankara – Heat Hammams and the Long Night Train

Istanbul overwhelms in a way few cities can. It is not merely a place but a collision of histories, a palimpsest of empires where every street corner seems to whisper in a dozen tongues. Lorena and I left our bags with Radical Storage near Sirkeci, free for a day of wandering before the night train east.

The city struck us first with its furnace heat — a punishing, delirious sun that seemed determined to flatten the unwary traveller. Even the shade gave no reprieve, and prices matched the climate: a pomegranate juice, tart and crimson, cost eleven euros, a cruel reminder that romance and commerce are uneasy bedfellows in Istanbul.

Still, the city lured us in. At the Grand Bazaar, amid its vaulted ceilings and kaleidoscope of stalls, I found myself in the theatre of bargaining. Gold gleamed, carpets spilled like rivers of colour, and one merchant with a smile as sharp as his prices pressed into my hand a Rolex “superclone” — so convincing it could have fooled its own maker. The negotiation was part ritual, part combat, carried on with humour and faint exasperation, until both sides walked away certain they had won.

Later, in the Hurrem Sultan Hammam, built in the 16th century for Suleiman’s favourite wife, I submitted to the Ottoman art of water and steam. The marble halls resonated with centuries of cleansing and renewal. There, under the domed roof, I felt less like a tourist and more like a participant in a ritual that has outlasted empires. The heat, paradoxically, revived me.

Lunch was humble yet perfect: kebabs, grilled with the confidence of a thousand years of practice, served with bread that carried the scent of fire. Simple food, made eternal by place.

In the afternoon, we stood before Hagia Sophia. Its sheer presence defied words — a cathedral, then a mosque, then a museum, and now a mosque again. Because I wore shorts, I was handed an absurd disposable tunic of paper, more suited to a hospital ward than a holy place. If there was irony in bowing under the great dome dressed like that, it was not lost on me.

At the Blue Mosque, the air thick with incense and prayer, we paused to listen. Worshippers moved as one, their devotion quiet yet thunderous. Outside, as twilight approached, we stumbled upon the hypnotic ceremony of the Whirling Dervishes. Their white robes spun, their faces serene, as if they were unlocking a secret rhythm of the universe.

By evening, weary but charged with the weight of the city, we made our way to Halkalı Station. The Ankara Ekspresi, leaving at 22:00, waited under dim lights — its carriages promising a night of rattling dreams. Ahead lay 576 kilometres of track, carrying us from the straits of Istanbul into the Anatolian heartland.

We boarded, found our compartment, and as the train pulled away, the city of domes and minarets receded into darkness. Another night train, another thread in the tapestry — and always eastward.

Ankara Ekspresi