Gypsy Festival

Our landlord had told us about a gypsy festival taking place on the streets behind Toptaki Palace, on Friday night, so we decided to go down and take a look.

There are a vast number of streets between the palace and the Bospherous so we randomly wandered off to find the festival. You would have thought you would have been able to hear it.

Eventually we found it, five stages along half a dozen streets, food stalls, beer taps and bands lining the way.

Every corner had a band that only stopped to make way for another band that would be passing with its entourage of dancers and revellers.

Brass bands, clarinets, traditional drums and woodwinds, all competed with the crowd’s tambourines and shakers in the din.

The crowds were vicious as well. Patience does not seem to be a virtue in this situation. Those little old ladies in headscarves sure know how to use there elbows. There were some small children who were dragged along and were looking thoroughly unimpressed.

We made it all the way down the street before we came to Stage One, The Techno Tent; but, it was not so much a tent as a castle, with DJs set up on a stage at one end, robo-lights on the ramparts and drunken business men getting down Turkish pop mixed with Bony M.

We made it out of there and up the side street to follow a band around to the front again. There was no choice other than to follow the band as they set the pace of the crowd. There was no getting around it.

I would have loved to stay for longer and have a few beers, but unfortunately, working on weekends, does not allow for late Friday nights drinking Efes. So we headed off.

Be sure to check it out if you are ever in Istanbul in early May.