Like many people my age (don’t ask – just assume young enough) and with my travel experience (45 countries and counting) the thought of being on a group tour is somewhat akin to public torture.  Jumping on and off gigantic air conditioned buses with 50 people who share nothing with you other than a common language, following someone with a gaudy colored umbrella and then elbowing grandmothers and children out of the way to get close enough to hear the guide drone on with a canned speech they’ve delivered 100 times before.  Yeah…I’ll pass.

But like most things there, are exceptions to that rule.  Years ago on a trip to Florence, my friends convinced me to take a night tour of the Ufizi Gallery.  I have to say, that experience changed my opinion of tours for the better. I realized that with shorter tours (less than a day, preferably just a few hours) I actually do learn quite a bit more than I would just reading the plaques on the walls of galleries and famous landmarks.  After that experience, I decided to make special exceptions for certain tours that meet a few criteria: they should be less than 4 hours with no more than 8 people and preferably not at top tourist sites (I’ll do those on my own with an audio guided tour or with my own research).

The Istanbul – Galata Nights tour offered by Context Walks seemed to fit those requirements.  The tour was scheduled to last for 3 hours, had no more than 6 participants and showed me an Istanbul neighborhood that was outside of Sultanahmet (where most of the Tourist Sights are located in Istanbul). Well, I’ll just say that I’m extremely happy that I participated in this tour offered by Context Walks.

The Tour took place in the Galata neighborhood of Istanbul. While this is not an unknown part of the city,  most tourists come here only to climb the Galata tower for beautiful views of the city, and then grab a bite to eat at the surrounding restaurants.  This tour, led by the personable and well informed Suzan Kalayci, took us through some of the back streets of the Galata and Tophane neighborhoods, where we discussed diverse topics from the impact of local businesses on their neighborhood, mosque etiquette, Armenian churches, baklava lore and our group’s favorite, the workings of the legal brothels in Istanbul.

A typical neighborhood cafe in Istanbul

Entering the only underground Mosque in Turkey

Interior of the Kilic Ali Pasha Mosque

Colorful Robes provided by the mosque to cover ourselves head to toe

At one point we ended up in the former Imperial Ottoman Bank building. A place I probably never would have gone on my own thinking it was just a finance building. But once inside, I was surprised to find the building is now owned by SALT which is a cultural institution in Istanbul that hosts gallery exhibits, art discussions, an art archive and art related research. I loved the mix of finance and art in that building and will have to come back to explore it further on my next Istanbul trip.

View inside the SALT Gallery in the Imperial Ottoman Bank building.

And thanks to this Context Walks tour, I ended up with a group of travel bloggers on an impromptu tour of one of Istanbul’s most famous balkava factories.  The Galata Nights tour took the group through the Karakoy Gulluoglu bakery, and while there, the owner of the bakery happend to be on the premises and invited the group back the next day for a full tour of the factory.  Apparently a tour of the factory is very difficult to book and often requires a week or more of notice. We totally scored on that one!

I’ve had a love of Baklava since I was a little girl and our Greek family friends would serve this dessert in their restaurant. I didn’t realize the actual origins of the dessert began in a region of Turkey.  Since being in Turkey, I’ve managed to have at least one piece (OK … at least TWO pieces) of baklava for dessert every day. So hearing that we had a chance to check out the factory was a special treat. Yes! Another tour for the girl who has always badmouthed tours. But who can so no to yummy, buttery, sweet pastry??

Deliciousness in a pan. Baklava at Karakoy Gulluoglu Cafe.

The next morning at 10:30, a group of us showed up at the Karakoy Gulluoglu baklava cafe and from there were taken about 5 minutes down the road to their main factory – or should I say “baklava heaven”.  You could smell the sweet goodness the second you walked in the door. And the only thing that could outshine the pastry is the business owner, Nadir Gullu. He was so welcoming, joyful, charismatic an truly passionate about his family business.

Meeting the bakery owner.  Behind him they are demonstrating how thin each layer of dough is – you can see the US & Turkey flags through it.

Mr. Gullu is passionate about his baklava business, his family and his country

He personally escorted us around the factory, explained the years long process of becoming a Master baker, described the process for creating baklava (40 layers of dough in each piece!), and the proper way to eat baklava (flip it over so the bottom touches the roof of your mouth, spread on a thin layer of cream and finally dip it in chopped pistacho pieces).  Their factory uses only organic materials and takes 3 – 4 hours to make each pan…and you can taste that effort in the delicious product (which we all got to sample back at the cafe).  Its not every day that I eat 4 pieces of baklava before noon, but its sure to be a good day when I do!

The finished product moments before its demise.