Istanbul magnificence

Day 12     Istanbul, Turkey    Tuesday, August 5, 2014

As we disembarked, it really did look like Turkey, wouldn't you say? You can see several mosques and spires everywhere. We learned that in this city of about 16 million people, there are more than 3000 mosques, each of which has at least one spire. It's a good thing there are that many mosques since Muslims must visit one about 35 times a week. You don't want it to be too far away!

The actual first thing we saw off the ship was this welcome performance. Pretty cool. It was both Janet's and my first time in Turkey, and we were excited about seeing Istanbul.

We hopped on our tour bus and crossed to the other side of the Golden Horn, a wide, 4-mile inlet waterway that separates two sides of the European side of Istanbul. Across the Bosphorus Straight is the Asian side of Istanbul (the New City). Overall it's a huge metropolis (90 miles long and 30 miles wide), but all the shore excursions focused only on the peninsula that contains their most historic buildings. At least OUR excursion took us on a boat trip up the Bosphorus Strait so we could see more sights on both sides of the city.

The bus initially drove around the base of the peninsula and we passed the walls of the Topkapi Palace, which our tour was not going to see. It's where the ruling families of the Ottoman Empire (and their harems) lived for over 400 years, starting in the late 15th century. Up to 5000 people lived in it to serve the dynasty and ruling class. Now it's a museum.

In the photo above, we have just departed our bus at the Hippodrome in the center of the old city. It was a huge open arena just smaller than the similar Circus Maximus in Rome. It held 30,000 spectators for chariot races and political events. It was finished in 330 AD in time for Emperor Constantine, who made the city (Constantinople) the second, eastern, Roman Empire capital. In the distance you can see the two obelisks.

This is the newer-looking one, but it's actually much older. It's Egyptian from 15th century BC (making it 3500 yrs old), and in 390 AD the Byzantine Emperor "stole" it and brought it to Constantinople.The hieroglyphics describe the bravery of Pharaoh Tuthmose.

This older-looking obelisk was "stolen" from the Apollo Temple in Delphi and brought here in 326 AD. It was originally built in 479 BC to glorify a Greek victory over the Persians.

The German Fountain, sent by Kaiser Wilhelm in 1898 in components and they reassembled it here. I can mention that once we departed our bus, our tour group was inundated by vendors offering souvenirs, even while we were trying to listen to our guide. Janet actually bought a few things after the price dropped from $25 to $5. Once she made the purchase, other vendors appeared from the woodwork and wouldn't leave her alone. During our entire visit in Istanbul, the vendors interrupted our group in their attempts to make sales.

Adjacent to the Hippodrome was the very famous Blue Mosque. Its actual name is Sultan Ahmet Mosque since he's the guy who built it in 1609-16 during his reign. It gets the name "Blue" due to all the blue tiles and blue paint inside. It's the only original mosque in the world with six spires (minarets) instead of the usual one or two.

See the speaker on the center gallery of this minaret? A main purpose of the minarets is to call the people to prayer via the speakers.We entered the Blue Mosque from the side, and while waiting in line I got this picture of the foot-washing stations:

 Being such a large mosque, I guess they needed LOTS of foot-washing stations.

Once inside, the women had to don their head covers. Janet bought hers in Mykonos, knowing she would need one, plus it would be a gift for Morgan.

This photo gives an idea of how huge it is inside, with its 200 stain glass windows and marble walls. There are 21,043 handmade tiles decorating the interior. Its capacity is 10,000!

Here is a slightly different angle and if you enlarge it you can see the beautiful designs on the columns, walls, and dome (there are nine domes in all).

Janet is talking with Bob and Mary, whom we ate dinner with on the very first night of the cruise (the ones from Midland, Ontario). We had to wait for the stragglers who missed the appointed meet time to continue the tour. Luckily there was some shade since it was a scorcher day -- again. We exited the Blue Mosque there in the background, and entered from the opposite side.

As we walked back to the bus to go to the Grand Bazaar and then lunch, I got this photo of Hagia Sofia, the most revered mosque in Istanbul. We would be touring it later in the afternoon even though it was only a few feet from the Blue Mosque.

But before anything else, we "had to" go watch a carpet demonstration. Of course they want you to be so impressed with their quality that you will buy six or seven carpets from them, but the first 20 minutes were actually educational and interesting.

The facility was a training center as well, with "scholarships" given to young women to learn the dying art of making these famous Turkish carpets. We watched this student work and the host explained her special knots and techniques. All I could think was, Slow Process! When the sales time came, we ditched and got an early start into the Grand Bazaar.

The pedestrian walk to reach the Grand Bazaar was "Western looking" wouldn't you say? It was only about 100 yards to the Bazaar, but we got lost nonetheless and walked around the outside of it until we saw one of its 11 gates. It was amazing inside!

There are 3500 shops and 15,000 salespeople along its 61 streets - the oldest and largest indoor bazaar in the world, dating from 1455. Since these 15,000 tradesmen need to pray several times each day, there also are nine mosques! Janet and I were two of about 400,000 visitors each day during the summer. Until the mid-19th century, it was also a slave market.

Near where we entered, we passed this shop with all the pretty ceramics. It just so happened that later we returned and actually bought two trivets, made in Turkey's capital city of Ankara. Every design was so beautiful, it was a crap-shoot to decide which two to buy.

Everything imaginable was sold, and one nice thing was all the color. There were hundreds of spice shops, and we compared prices and finally bought two one-gram packages of saffron. I plan to make paella with my gram - the other was a gift.

As we left to go meet our bus for lunch (which was 30 minutes late!), we exited via the main gate we were supposed to have entered had we not gotten lost. It's called Nuruosmaniye Gate, from 1755.

Sure enough, our bus was 30 minutes late as we all waited in the hot midday sun on a sidewalk with vendors pushing their wares the whole time. Our guide never did offer an explanation or apology, so it must be common in the traffic of that metropolis. We again drove around the bottom of the peninsula, again past the Topkapi Palace walls, to a spot just below the Hagia Sofia that we'd be touring after lunch.

Lunch was in a huge hotel auditorium completely filled with tourists from the tour company we were using. I'm not remembering specifics of the items served, but I remember we liked everything. As we waited afterward to get going again, I admired the hotel-lobby historical mementos because they featured the Orient Express and their antique ad posters.

Even though the Hagia Sofia was just a short walk up from where we were, we nevertheless all had to walk back down to our bus and wait for everyone and then drive the quarter mile.

We're following our guide with our tour #10 on her umbrella, headed to Hagia Sofia, or Ayasofya, which means Holy Wisdom.

 A view inside showing both its Catholic and Islamic history. From the date of its construction in 537 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral. Then the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople and it became a mosque until 1931. It was then secularized and opened as a museum in 1935. It is Istanbul's masterpiece and highly revered. If you're counting, it has four minarets! The dome is 180 feet tall and the mosaic up high of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus is from 867

As restoration has progressed over the years, Christian iconographic mosaics can be uncovered, but often at the expense of important and historic Islamic art. Our tour guide pointed out a couple of examples. Restorers have attempted to maintain a balance between both Christian and Islamic cultures, but controversies exist.

We marveled at the size, all the beautiful marble, granite, mosaics, stained glass, and carpets, and finally it was time to exit. We left through this passage, above, that used to be the entry for Emperors. The mosaic up high is one of the best preserved in the building, dating from 944. Here's a close-up:

It is Virgin Mary holding Jesus, with Emperor Constantine on her left presenting her a model of the city, and Emperor Justinian on her right presenting a model of the Hagia Sofia. The city was sacked so many times over the centuries, and they had so many destructive earthquakes and fires, that most of the treasures there at one time or another are long gone.

Finally it was time for our cruise, our tour's last event.  We boarded a 50-ft boat with a covered upper deck and a bottom level, but everyone was up top. As we departed out of the Golden Horn toward the Bosphorus Strait, we could see where we had been most of the day - there are the Hagia Sofia on the left with its four minarets, and the Blue Mosque on the right with its six minarets.

A bit farther along the peninsula is the Topkapi Palace. Beyond the peninsula is southward, from where our ship came in and would depart later. Our boat turned north at this point and cruised up the western, or European, side of the Bosphorus Strait that reaches the Black Sea after 19 miles. It's the world's narrowest strait used for international navigation. The average width is about 1000 yards, but halfway up it narrows to 700 yards where there is a 45-degree turn and 8-knot currents, making a dangerous point for maritime traffic. Our cruise did not go that far north!

The scenery as we approached the bridge, which carries traffic between Europe and Asia. Way off in the distance is a mosque, at the far right of the photo; here's a close-up of it:

This is the Mosque of Ortaköy, built in 1855. The Ortaköy district of town is known for its religious tolerance, as a mosque, Greek Orthodox Church, and synagogue are all in proximity.

Just before we got to the mosque in the picture above, we passed the Dolmabahҫe Palace Museum. The palace, built from 1843 to 1856, was patterned after the Louvre in Paris and Buckingham Palace in London. 14 tons of gold and 40 tons of silver were used to decorate it, which explains why it bankrupted the treasury. The final six sultans did live in it at times, but when the Ottomans were expelled at the end of the first world war, it went empty until it became a museum. It's a massive place, with 285 rooms, 43 halls, 1427 windows, 156 clocks, and the list goes on.

And then we passed under the bridge, and that is Asia over there on the other side. This Bosphorus Bridge is just shy of a mile long and was finished in 1973. At that time it was the 4th longest suspension bridge in the world (and the longest outside the U.S), but 41 years later, it's now only the 22nd longest. 

We continued on up the western side of the strait a little ways and passed some rich guy's personal yacht. I note that his "dinghies" are fancy speed boats. 

As we turned and were crossing to the Eastern, or Asian side of the strait, I took this photo of the other suspension bridge three miles farther north. It's about the same length and was completed in 1988.

There were lots of expensive mansions along the Asian side.

Here's a hotel with a restaurant on the water.

Another fancy mansion.

Another fancy mosque, and this one had these elaborate golden doors from the water.

We passed a park with all these kids swimming in the strait. Nice they can do that!

Our last site on the Asian side before turning west to go back to our berth was this Maiden's Tower, 220 yards off the shore at the bottom of the strait. There have been fortresses, castles, or light houses there for 800 years, and now it's a restaurant and cafe! It gets its name from a legend that an emperor built a castle there to protect his beloved daughter so that she would not be killed before she turned 18 by a snake, which an oracle had predicted. On her 18th birthday, the emperor brought her a basket of sumptuous fruits, delighted that he was able to prevent the prophecy, but an asp hiding in the exotic fruit bit her and she died. (I'm glad I researched the whole story, because when I asked the guide what this was, she simply said it was where an emperor imprisoned his daughter. I didn't realize it was even a legend, nor that the emperor did it out of love.)

 I finally have a photo with Janet in it to prove she really did go on the Bosphorus cruise. As we were getting back to our dock on the peninsula, we could see our Norwegian Spirit at its berth across the Golden Horn.

It certainly was a wonderful day we had seeing a small part of this exotic and legendary city. I took this photo back at the metropolis as our cruise ship headed south toward the narrow Dardanelles, which separate the Sea of Marmara (where we were in this photo) from the Aegean Sea. You can certainly see in this photo just how spread out Istanbul is, and yes, it has many skyscrapers.

Our nightly towel sculpture. If you've been on a cruise, I'm sure you've gotten these from the stewards who look after your room. This elephant was especially cute. We always got our little chocolates and the next day's schedule. My records say that the theater show that night was "Marta and Thomas". For the life of me, I do not remember this act or what they did. Janet thinks they were gymnasts. I know we watched it, but...