Istanbul - Journey's End

We were off on another jaunt about Istanbul today to hit some of the remaining highlights. First off was the Sultanahmet Mosque, better known by the rest of the world as the Blue Mosque.

It got the nickname from the blue hue that the interior takes on due to mosaics and stained glass. It's a pretty awesome place to worship.

Immediately adjacent to the Sultanahmet Mosque is the Hippodrome, a former open area arena/theatre. Today it is dominated by the 3500 year old Obelisk of Theodosius.

We then headed off to find the largest mosque in Istanbul, Suleymaniye Mosque. To get there, our straightest line was through the heart of the Grand Bazaar. They were having some electrical issues today with most shops in the dark. You can tell from the shafts of light in this photo that they were really depending on ambient light.

There's a lot of construction going on in Istanbul and a lot of it on our route seemed to be connected with the University. Suleymaniye wasn't as easy to find as we expected given its size, but we finally found this gigantic mosque.

No mosque may contain any images of things or people. Compared to Sultanahmet, this one was even more austere.

Adjacent to Suleymaniye were some more great views looking out over the Golden Horn.

We tried to avoid hills on today's walk and mostly did so, but we still saw another interesting section of the city. The skies were a pristine blue today and although the temperature wasn't supposed to pass 15 C. it felt hotter than that in the sun. An open terrace was therefore a must for lunch. The hotel on the corner, not more than 50 metres from ours had the best rooftop terrace in the area, towering above all other hotels. As a result, fabulous 360 views were available.

For November 4th, this terrace lunch was a bonus. Packing was the next order of business. We borrowed Jackie and Tony's bag, because despite sending a box home, we were still in trouble weight wise. Our final dinner of the vacation was in Kybele, once again a stone's throw from our hotel. Our hotel did have a restaurant, by the way, just not a very interesting or affordable one. One important thing we learned about Turkey, is that things are a lot cheaper here than anywhere we have been on this journey.

So this winds up another edition of my travelogue. Tomorrow morning we catch a 3:15 am shuttle to the airport where we fly to Amsterdam and then home with KLM. It's been an amazing trip! I think my blog will bear witness to that. La vie est belle!!!

Istanbul - The Grand Circuit

Last count, the number of steps taken today were 10800. Factor into that some pretty steep hills and lots of cobblestone and you get some idea of our day. After a bountiful hotel breakfast, we set off for the shopping experience of a lifetime - Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. We discovered early this morning that we had no guide for today which was just as well - who wants to guide people in a shopping area?

This marketplace is a warren of twisting lanes and shops, all indoors. We hit it just as they were opening, which as it turns out is a good plan because we didn't get anywhere near the amount of aggressive hawking we had tolerated five years ago. The walk was really enjoyable.

After you get off the main street where all the high end jewellery shops are located, the variety of merchandise at affordable prices increases. There is no flat or straight street through this market. Therefore, many photo ops abound.

Turkish love their morning coffee and tea. This was a very quaint cafe set up within the bazaar.

As it turns out, Westerners didn't do a good job of translating this country's name. It's not really Turkey, but rather Turkiye and even if we chose to drop the final e, it still wouldn't be the bird. From the Bazaar we headed downhill towards the Golden Horn. On our route we experienced more human mules moving great bundles of merchandise than we've seen since China.

At the bottom of the hill was the Spice Market. It's always hard for us to get out of here without some gastronomic goodies.

Our route now took us across the Golden Horn on the Galata Bridge. Looking back at the heart of old Istanbul is an awesome site.

Lined along the bridge were many fishermen, who were selling their fresh catch of small delectable fish. Other views just kept on coming.

Then we started the tough part of the walk up the hill to the Galata Tower built in 1348 to keep an eye on Istanbul.

We were now on a quest to find Istanbul's Hard Rock Cafe. This was not easy, since they haven't been open a year and noone we asked knew what we were talking about. Despite this, we did find it and had a great lunch, a birthday lunch, since Dawn was celebrating another year of fun and frolic today. Not a shabby place to celebrate a birthday!

After lunch, we walked down a vibrant major shopping street called Istiklal Caddesi on our way to Taksim Square. This is the location of recent student protests, of which our Hard Rock waiter was a participant and had a few stories to tell. The little patch of trees in this photo was the point of contention - shopping mall or park. Park has won, for the time being.

Now we were at the furthest point from our hotel that we had been today. So we traced a relatively straight path back. There might have been a few sights along the way. The inside of mosques may be similar, but the exteriors certainly differ.

Tonight for Dawn's Birthday, we went online and determined the best restaurant closest to our hotel. Probably, if we asked how many restaurants are within 200 metres from the hotel, the search would come back with over 100. The search we did liked the restaurant immediately adjacent to the hotel called Medusa. The name is not encouraging, but the dinner was excellent. In general, we are finding dining in Turkey very cheap/affordable.

Tonight's meal was once again - unlike lunch - very ethnic. The ladies had the Medusa kebob, speciality of the house. The white stuff is yogurt.

Tony had meatballs which were flattened and I had a veal steak. For dessert I had a candied pumpkin and early unripened walnut - very unique and very wonderful. Our meals were fabulous. After the lengthy circuit today, everyone was pooched following dinner, so we called it a night. As we peered out our bedroom window, this was the view.

Istanbul - The Basilica Cistern and Hagia Sophia

This morning we got the boot from the ship and dragged our bags to where our hotel driver picked us up. In a scant few kilometres, we were delivered to our home for the next three days, Hotel Hagia Sophia. This place is in the heart of the old city, with fairly stunning views of the real Hagia Sophia - once church, then mosque, now museum - from the hotel terrace and our room.

It was still too early to get into our room, which by the way, they upgraded as soon as Dawn asked, "Do we have a stunning view?" Therefore, we headed off to do some exploring. A mere 50 metres from the front door of the hotel was the entrance to the Basilica Cistern, which featured prominently in Dan Brown's last book, Inferno. This 5th century cistern which has had numerous refurbishes over the years was a pretty awesome place where we thought the Phantom of the Opera would feel quite at home. Christine!

Right across the street from the cistern was Hagia Sophia, potentially the most famous landmark in Istanbul. Since it was closed tomorrow, we figured we might as well get in the long line and make the visit. As we were queuing, a young man named Mohamet asked us if he could help us spend our money. We liked his approach and hired him as a guide. He quickly got us to the front of the line and we ended up spending a fascinating two hours with him in the museum.

Hagia Sophia was initially constructed in 300 AD but that structure is all but gone. The next two phases of construction, started in the 6th century are what we see today. This basilica with its central dome is considered the greatest work of Byzantine architecture in the world and was the principal church in the Byzantine Empire for more than nine centuries. With the onset of the Ottoman Empire it became a mosque. They did not destroy the Christian embellishments but rather covered them up. For example the angel shown in the following photo, became what the second picture depicts during the mosque era.

The massive interior of this church/mosque is truly impressive.

The last picture is one of the Christian mosaics which were somewhat restored following the mosque's conversion to a museum. Gotta love the expression on Jesus' face as he is confronted by a somewhat fallen woman to the left of him. We were so happy with the tour that Mohamet gave us that we hired him for a tour further downtown tomorrow. We finally got checked into our rooms - gigantic compared to the ship's stateroom. Then we set out to see if we could find some wine in a muslim city. I wandered down into a covenience store and immediately got asked if I was looking for wine. Boy, we Westerners read like a book! We succeeded selecting some wine and got some nice views along the way.

The majority of muslim woman in Istanbul are not covered with scarf or burka, but those that are, are pretty classy. Mohamet gave us the best explanation for the covering of woman and their segregation in the mosques. The true muslim man goes to the mosque to pray and dedicate that time to God. As they prostrate themselves before god, they do not wish to be distracted by a female derrier in front of them. Also the lips of women are considered very sexual and are therefore covered by some. So the bottom line is that muslim men like most men in the world are sexual pigs and need help controlling their urges. Encouraging! When we got back to the hotel, Hagia Sophia looked like this from our window as we played cards.

I have to say that we are finding the people of Istanbul extremely friendly and helpful. For example, I approached an Uzi carrying policeman today and said "We love your city". He smiled and said thank you and proceeded to tell us about the slightly decrepit building in front of which he was standing. He explained that it was was from the Ottoman period, but had been abandonned and now was a tourist police station. I said it needed some love. He smiled and invited me to come anytime I liked to fix it up. Probably not happening! Anyway, everyone has been really nice! We had a fabulous meal tonight not far from the hotel. Both couples opted for a testi kebabi, lamb for Dawn and I and chicken for Tony and Jackie. It came to the table in flaming clay pots. They served us some of the stew from the pots and then ceremoniously whacked the top off the top of the pots and served us the rest. Wow!

The area around the hotel is packed with interesting restaurants. Time isn't going to allow us to experience many of them, so for the next two days we'll have to be particular about our choices.