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| Blue Mosque with 6 minerettes and Hagia Sophia next door |
Today is our first day in Istanbul. We have the same guide, Hakan, as we had in Ephesus, so we got some of the same preliminary info as before.
On the way to our first stop we traveled from Asia to Europe and passed the Railway Station that served the Orient Express. It's a building with elegant lines, but the sides are painted Pepto Bismal pink. I'm sure Agatha Christie would not approve. Found out they are paying $3 a liter for gas, which works out to better than $12 a gallon. Yikes!
We first traveled to the Blue Mosque, which is absolutely gorgeous. There are more than 21,000 blue tiles in the building and the floor is covered with soft red Turkish carpet. It was no hardship to take off our shoes while inside. (They give you plastic bags to carry them, so we didn't have to worry about not being able to find them again.) The whole thing is breath taking. It is still a functioning worship center, much like St. Peter's in Rome.
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| Blue Mosque |
Just outside the mosque is the grounds of the ancient Roman Hippodrome, which still has three monuments from the time--an Egyptian obelisk, the remains of a stone Roman column that had once been covered with bronze and copper, and the Serpent column which is the body of a bronze snake with three heads or maybe it is three intertwined snakes (the heads have been moved to others museums.)
We moved on to the Hagia Sofia, which has had a varied history. The first two Christian churches burned down, but the third, built in 532 by Justinian, was a Christian church for 900 years until the Ottoman Empire conquered the city. It was then a mosque until the modernization of Turkey, when it became the museum it is today.
Our lunch was at an open air cafe along the Bosporus. The chefs were on a boat. They had to wait for the wave for the chef to hand the sandwich to the waiter. For those of you who know Kansas City, the atmosphere was a lot like Gates BBQ, but the people providing the fish sandwiches (a very tasty fillet with chopped lettuce and onion on a wonderful bun) do not run the drink concession. another group came through with desserts.
We chickened out and didn't even bother to try the goat milk ice cream after several of our group gave it very bad ratings. Elizabeth, who tries everything, actually threw hers away. |
| Royal carriage |
After lunch we toured Topkapi Palce which had been the home of the sultans since 1459. They had a big display of the royal carriages, all painted fancy, and the treasury, which featured gold and jewels, including a 87 carat diamond. No pictures allowed. Lots of guards with guns.
There were four extensive courtyards. Plenty of space for the 3,000+ people who lived there. Shops and services were available within the palace.
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| Second courtyard of four at the palace |
I didn't think I could walk all the way to the bus, so I joined several others of like mind and feeble body to take a "taksi" back to the ship. Now I know why there are 2,000 mosques, 167 churches, 17 synagogues, and 10 monasteries in Istanbul. I thought Rome's traffic was crazy--I was wrong. It is only mildly disturbed.
DJA - mostly
PS: A small correction to a previous post. Captain Per cannot possibly be the Swedish chef, as he is Norwegian.
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