I hope you all appreciate the breadth of research I’m willing to engage in to provide you with only the most timely, most topical, most accurate reporting. This is the third installment in my hopefully long running series on regional variations in hammams, having already reported on Moroccan hammams (adored) and Tunisian hammams (tolerated). I now find myself at Ground Zero of the Turkish Bath, Turkey, and I am once more willing to enter the trenches, for you, my dear readers.

My Moroccan and Tunisian experiences were spa-based, so this time I picked a more traditional trench: the Kılıç Ali Paşa Hamam. It was built in 1580 by famed architect Mimar Sinan, builder of many of Turkey’s iconic structures, including Istanbul’s Süleymaniye Mosque. The hammam was part of the Kılıç Ali Paşa Mosque compound built at the same time. Sadly, it hasn’t operated continuously, as it had fallen into ruinous disrepair. It was reopened in 2012, to spectacular effect, after a seven year renovation.

The main floor is a lounge, for waiting with a chilled pomegranate juice while they prepare for you, as well as relaxing post-hammam. The vibe of this space was spa chill, but it obviously didn’t feel like a spa. It felt pasha luxurious, not spa luxurious. It was built for a pasha, after all.

This was the only place I could take pictures. Even if they were permitted inside, which they are thankfully not, that’s a lot of hot and wet for an iPhone.

The changing rooms are upstairs, and that’s where the traditional starts to kick in. They provide you with slippers for the marble floors and what they refer to as a loincloth. That loincloth is actually called a peshtemal and dates back to Roman times, the Roman baths having been the inspiration for the Ottoman hammams. One source I found claims that the peshtemal is the oldest textile product still in use.

They’re woven from fine Turkish cotton and are thinner than regular towels, so they dry quicker. They’re also big, like serapes. I was expecting something more like the ridiculous disposable spa panties I’d been provided in Morocco and Tunisia (and yes, I have a picture, and no, you don’t get to see it – you’re welcome), but instead I got a length of fabric I had to negotiate. You can imagine how that went. But don’t.

I returned to the waiting area clutching my poorly secured peshtemal and was ushered into the holy of holies, a white marble sanctum full of hot air and mostly naked Turks. And here’s where the whole experience required a leap of faith. Turkish hammams are strictly segregated by gender. I only found one coed hammam in Istanbul, in the sense that men and women could be serviced at the same time, although in different facilities.

The Kılıç Ali Paşa took the more usual approach, with daytime hours for women and evening hours for men. In all of the pictures I’d seen, the hammamers, called tellaks, were fat old men. I don’t think this makes me a pig, but I think the correct answer to the question, “Would you rather get a bath from a fat old man or a pretty young woman?” is pretty young woman. Cancel me. It would be a relief.

I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d feel about being bathed by a fat old man, but my tellak, an affable young man named Engin, put me at ease. By being, at a minimum, neither fat nor old. I discovered later that Engin means vast or wide. What a shitty thing to do to a baby.

The room was dominated by a massive hexagonal marble plinth sitting under a backlit dome.

As I obviously couldn’t take photos inside, I scraped the interior photos from here. I’m sure they stole them first.

Engin placed a folded up towel to use as a head rest and guided me to lie down on the plinth, which turned out to be heated. If you’ve read my posts on Moroccan and Tunisian hammams, you’ll know that I don’t really like saunas. Sweating is one of my least favorite activities, especially given that we’re in Istanbul in June and spend most of the day sweating. But I like a wet sauna even less than a dry sauna, which is one of the reasons I didn’t much care for the Tunisian hammam experience, so I was at least slightly mollified by the fact that I was lying down in a dry sauna.

Well, if I was expected to lay down and sweat my toxins out, I was going to lean into that experience. It’s like taking acid. Once that tab dissolves under your tongue you are on the trip, my friend, and it’s better to relax and let it sweep you along. Struggling is counterproductive.

I’m guessing that I was on that plinth for about 15 minutes, although time was, to be fair, a little elastic. At one point I opened my eyes to see that a glass of ice water had magically appeared by my head. It’s good to be pasha.

In between one of the soap/rinse cycles an exfoliating glove, called a kese, was introduced. It fell well short of the birch branch flensing I’d anticipated, and was nearly gentle. Engin and I were fast becoming friends. I wasn’t even offended when he grabbed my belly and playfully suggested “şiş kebap.” Of course, the correct answer was “kek.” To be fair, if a pretty young woman had grabbed my belly, looked me in the eye, and announced “şiş kebap” I’d probably have been mortified. So there’s that.

Although Dorothy swears I’d just interpret it as a come on, and disagreeing with Dorothy is pointless.

After washing my hair, Engon performed a magic trick. It involved an object called a torba, which is basically a pillow case. It’s dipped in soapy water and then swooshed to fill it with air. Through some black art, the bag fills with rich, dense foam which is poured over you. Repeatedly. I looked like a soapy Michelin man, nothing but a head and feet.

After a final rinse with cool water (which felt wonderful), Engin stood me up and swapped in a dry peshtemal. He also cinched it like a professional. So thoroughly that when it came time to change I have trouble unwrapping it. Properly adorned, at last, he led me to the final room, the soğukluk, what the Romans called the frigidarium.

He dried my hair and wrapped it in a turban. He also wrapped a towel around my shoulders, flapping it repeatedly so it blew cool air over me. On balance, I found Engin extremely likable.

The final stop was back to the lounge, to unwind for as long as I’d like and enjoy every glass of ice water they brought me. The whole experience was like getting a bath in a mosque. Both in the setting itself and in the sense of spiritual contentment that followed. It was as close to a religious experience as I’m permitted.

I never did the traditional hammam in Morocco, so I can’t truly say whether the difference between the two situations was Morocco vs. Turkey or Spa vs. Traditional. But as much as I truly loved the Moroccan experience, I’ll take the Turkish version any day of the week. Preferably all of them. If I could afford it. My Turkish bath was over three times the cost in Morocco and Tunisia. But you get what you pay for, and I got an unforgettable adventure into a distant past made deliciously present.

If my goal was traditional, mission accomplished.

Let me take you out on a video the hammam itself put together. You really get a feel for the space.