In Turkey, energetic Istanbul and spiritual Konya offer two different sides of the country | Canada Voices

Turkish coffee has two uses. One is to help the traveller keep up with the energy of the country, and especially of Istanbul. The other is to predict the future.

We are in Sultanahmet Park, the landmark roof of the Hagia Sophia mosque, one of Istanbul’s most visited sites. One by one, my friends and I down our shots of coffee as our guide Şölen Mailoğlu says she will use her grandma’s technique to read the grounds. Proper fortune-telling form, she explains, is to first turn over the coffee cup against a saucer to let the remaining grinds distribute themselves in the cup in a pattern as unique as every person’s path through life.

Our fortune teller turns over the first cup.

“I see elephants,” she says to my friend. “Do you see a trunk, right there?” A coffee trail curls toward the wall of the cup, followed by a shorter lighter wisp behind. “And a baby elephant,” my friend says.

Two elephants foretell great movement in real estate, and the potential for good profit, the soothsayer predicts. My friend is thinking about a move, so this is welcome news.

I ask if the grinds can tell us what’s in the cards for Turkey.

“Of course not. Turkey makes its own future,” Mailoğlu says.

Over the centuries, the country has used its geography as a springboard for influence – whether through conquest, diplomacy and trade. Neighbouring conflicts between Iran and the United States, and Russia and Ukraine, has again put Turkey’s geography in focus, even as domestic political and economic tensions complicate its future.

For a tourist, these issues may feel urgent, perhaps even risky. But take the long view, one of our guides says. Istanbul is a city with a 2,500-year-old history.

Every human problem, from the rise and fall of an empire to personal heartbreak, has been felt by someone here in that time. To visit is to have the opportunity to glimpse how people live through and with the cracks of history all around.

For starters, they party.

On Saturday night in Istanbul, the streets and squares are spilling over with the city’s youth restlessly on the move, defying the bumper to bumper traffic. With a median age of 35, Turkey is young.

At the same time, generational mixing seems little changed from the family gatherings that fans of Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence would recognize. At Ruby, in the fashionable Ortaköy district, a mainstay restaurant in the city, everyone is out. A family is celebrating their patriarch’s birthday with hand-held sparklers and singing. Couples dressed for galas, not dates, whisper across intimate tables, waiting for the dance floor to open. The restaurant closes at 4 a.m.

And every patron makes their way to the outdoor patio to snap photos of the lights on the Bosphorus Bridge connecting Europe and Asia.

An even more polished image of Istanbul’s contemporary character is on display 20 minutes down the Bosphorus in the Galataport district.

Opened after a US$1.7-billion regeneration project, the district took approximately eight years to redevelop, transforming an industrial waterfront into a master-planned neighbourhood similar to New York’s Hudson Yards, Manchester’s NOMA or Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Cultural District.

On the shoreline, “hans” – 19th-century industrial warehouses built to store merchandise bound for export – have been transformed into a luxury hotel, while a former post office and customs building is now home to more than 70 boutique Turkish brands. Shoppers disembarking from cruise ships are tempted by the oversized and elaborate jewellery of Sevan Bıçakçı, boxes of artisanal Turkish delight, photobooks by the country’s famed photographer Ara Güler, or a stop at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, designed by Renzo Piano.

Where Ruby serves perfect traditional meals of sea bass or lamb chops, the meze platter at Muutto, a second-storey restaurant overlooking the Bosphorus, nods to the cultural fusions created by trade.

Billing itself as an Anatolian tapas bar, Muutto – “migration” in Finnish – adds Mediterranean flavours to a foundation of Turkish cuisine. Its Michelin Guide entry compares it to a Spanish tapas bar. A roasted eggplant dip has the comforting smooth texture of baba ghanoush but is enlivened with mint and lemon, while a roasted mushroom dip is smoky with roasted red pepper.

Istanbul’s contemporary sheen can make it feel as if it represents the country’s future. But the country’s ambitions extend far beyond such photogenic areas. Increasingly, its influence will rise with the success of central areas, away from Istanbul. In central Anatolia, for example, secure land trade routes offer alternatives to increasingly contested sea routes.

An hour from Istanbul by plane, one region benefitting from proximity to economic investment in expanding trade is Konya. A destination not yet on influencers’ radars, Konya, the capital of the province, is a mix of intensive economic development and equally passionate spiritual devotion.

Konya is home to the resting place of Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, and his passing is marked by the religious order he founded, as well as by modern-day devotees drawn to his message of interfaith tolerance and love. Every December, millions of travellers arrive here to celebrate Rumi.

The rest of the year, Konya is a modern, 1.5 million person strong city. The sunrise behind the Taurus Mountains casts a magic light on the ring roads connecting newly built and spacious (by Turkish standards) apartments and townhouses, remarkable only in the precision of their planning.

And yet, again, history beats in each brick of the city’s modern façade.

In the city’s old centre, the Bedesten bazaar, dating from 1538, has been rebuilt as an open air mall. It would not seem out of place in a North American suburb. Go beyond the first few lanes to explore the 2,700 shops on the site and every lane reveals a new specialty: silver, nuts, high-quality clothing, shoes, knives, kitchen appliances, sweets, spices and peppers and on and on. Women shop arm-in-arm and happily offer their advice on the best goods to haul home.

Several streets are dedicated to jewellery, primarily gold. I go into a shop to explore.

As the vendor is weighing my purchase (gold is priced by weight not design), another customer walks in. He unwraps a large handkerchief to reveal a gold bar. A wafer is sliced from the bar along prescored markers in exchange for a stack of bills wrapped in paper. With inflation at over 30 per cent, the precious metal is a tangible store of value for households that can afford to maintain reserves.

This is not a man who would seek his fortune in a coffee cup, I think. In a country where the future is up for debate, people are forging their own.

If you go

Turkish Airlines offers direct flights from Toronto to Istanbul, with complimentary stopovers in the city for travellers wanting to connect further, either in Turkey or to further destinations. Turkish Airlines also offers packages to every region of the country, sometimes timed to local festivals.

The Galata Hotel Istanbul – Mgallery Collection has a terrific location on Bank Street in the Karaköy neighbourhood. Within walking distance are the Galata Tower, the Salt Galata cultural centre (once the headquarters for the Ottoman Bank, the empire’s central bank) and the Kamondo Stairs, which are favoured by short stay European travellers taking photos. Historical sites are a 10- to 20-minute walk across the Galata Bridge and the generous and artisanal breakfast offers fuel for adventures further afield. Rooms from $450 a night in low season.

Special to The Globe and Mail

The writer was a guest of Turkish Airlines and GoTürkiye, which did not review or approve this article. Stories are based on merit; The Globe does not guarantee coverage.