We landed in Ataturk airport and hopped in a taxi to Sultanhamet, the downtown area where most of the sites are. Sultanhamet is in the European part of the city (part is in Europe and part is in Asia) and the European part is where all of the sites to see are.
By the time we got in Tuesday it was too late to do anything really so we just wandered around the city a bit and got dinner at a little place two doors down from our hotel that had some incredible lamb sausage kebaps and this really good seasoned and toasted bread. We then went to bed pretty early to be ready to do some walking the next day and see some of the sites.
Wednesday we slept in then got up rested and ready to go walk around a bit. Our first stop was the Aya Sofia. We followed the tram path from our hotel right next to the park between the Aya Sofia and Blue Mosque and decided to hit the Aya Sofia first. The Aya Sofia was built somehwere around 530AD, so a really long time ago. It was originally a christian church, this is evidenced by two remaining pictures of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus on the inside. The building was then converted to a Mosque when Istanbul was captured by the Ottoman empire. The outside and most of the inside look like a Mosque, however in the 1930s Ataturk converted it to a museum as a symbol of religious tolerance. He did not want the two religions fighting over who held the rights to the building.
Here is Maude standing in front of the Aya Sofia and me stading on the inside. This is only a portion of the inside. It is fairly empty inside but impressive and very large. It is obviously being restored, etc. but it is amazing the condition it is in since it is over 1500 years old. The building was definitely one to see.
Right after this we walked through a very nice, small park that had beautiful green grass. This is impressive to me because it has been so long since I have seen real bright colors, Prauge is rainy and grey...though I think we are finally reaching spring here and i'm finally seeing sun in this city. But anyway, after we walked through the park we went to the Blue Mosque. I was more impressed by the Blue Mosque than by the Aya Sofia personally and this was also the first mosque that I have ever actually entered. The Blue Mosque doesn't look too blue from the outside, but when you go in, there are decorative tiles everywhere that are blue. To enter we had to go around the side entrance and remove our shoes then we could enter. We also were not allowed to walk around the entire mosque since we are not muslim.
So the first picture is clearly Maude and I in front of the blue mosque, the second is the inside of the mosque, and the thir is an example of the blue tile that is covereing the walls and ceiling of the mosque.
After we left the mosque and got our shoes back on we headed down toward the water to see the "Little Aya Sofia", this is not really at all like the aya sofia, it is actually a small working mosque but with a lot of history. We went into the little aya sofia also, my second mosque ever, and this one was totally empty except for Maude and I. However, this mosque seemed like it was actually used by people and wasn't just a tourist attraction. We were also able to walk all around the mosque so we could see all of the different parts.
After leaving the mosque our guidebook led us a bit astray and we wandered through "real istanbul" for awhile. We were without question the only white people and we weren't really sure where we were. Finally, we backtracked though and eventually made our way over to the Obelisk of Theodosius, the remains of the Serpant column and the park where chariot races once took place. It wasn't that much to see but it was a cool park to just sit in and people watch. After this we walked back to our hotel and we were done with our sightseeing for the day. I can't even remember where exactly we had dinner but on the whole we didn't do anything special at night and we got a good nights sleep and were ready for the Baazar on Thursday.
The Grand Baazar is ridiculous, I can't really think of a more apt way to describe it. The majority of it is actually inside and it is an enormous complex of hallways going every direction possible. All sorts of stuff was for sale including pashminas, turkish teas and turkish delight, chess boards, leather goods, handwoven carpets, and an assortment of other things. The stuff was relatively cheap but you had to haggle to get anything at a reasonable price because the initial costs were way too expensive. I ended up getting a few things for other people and got myself a scarf and some apple tea and turkish delight. Turkish delight is a sort of candy that is hard to explain its like a jellyish feeling square that comes in all sorts of different flavors. We wandered around the baazar for quite some time because it was so large, but eventually, after getting everything we wanted, we left the grand bazaar and headed over to the spice bazaar just to see what it was like. The spice bazaar was much smaller and had a lot of the same things, except there were lots of shops selling all sorts of different fresh herbs and spices. I didn't buy any because I figured I wouldn't really be able to put them to good use in Prague and it would be awhile before I got home. It was interesting to see nonetheless.
Here you can see just one of the many hallways in the bazaar and a picture showing piles of different herbs and spices that were for sale in the spice bazaar. The two bazaars took up most of our day, but the spice bazaar was right near the Bosphorus (our hotel was near here as well) so we walked over to take a look across the river and watch a lot of Turkish people fishing off the sides of a bridge. We also saw a restaurant at the edge of the water where the kitchen was an open air boat sitting on the river, so the whole time it was rocking up and down and I imagine it would be a pain to cook like that especially because it was pretty windy when we were watching.
Friday we slept in, as we usually do, and after lunch headed out to see a few more things around the city. Our first main stop was Gülhane Park, which was just a very large park with a nice pond and fountain and flowers in bloom everywhere. We walked the length of the park and just looked around at all the green, the flowers, and the pleasant scenery. The park was adjacent to our next stop, which was Topkapi Palace. The palace had more of this lush greenery and included a few mosques and a number of other stops such as horse barns and a few museums as well. Our last main stop for the day was the Basilica Cistern, essentially an enormous underground cavern with lots of pillars that used to hold all of the water for the palace. It was an impressive cavern, though it was dark so good pictures were difficult (I got a postcard with a good one on it). Also, there was still some water left at the bottom of the cavern and there were some large carp living in the water, they may be the descendents of some carp that were there in 530AD when it was built who knows.
First is Maude is Gülhane Park, note all the blooming flowers, and second is me in the Cistern, in the background you can see a few of the columns. Also on friday we took the tram and the funicular up to Taksim square and walked down the main avenue where all the best shopping restaurants and bars are, this is actually pretty far from where all of the sights are in Sultanhamet.
Saturday was our last real day in Istanbul and really we had already seen all of the major sights. So we decided to take it easy, wander around the nice parts of the city and just walk and people watch. We sat in the park between the blue mosque and aya sofia for awhile and just enjoyed the beautiful weather. The one other thing we did was hop on a ferry and take a short 15 minute ride across the Bosphorus to Üskudar, a part of Istanbul that is in Asia. There wasn't really much to see there so we hung out for a bit, took some pictures and hopped the ferry back across the river. The real reason we did it was to say that we had been to Asia since neither of us had ever been before.
Not all that impressive looking but here is a view from the ferry of Asia out across the Bosphorus.
Finally, Sunday had arrived and it was time to return to Prague. We just relaxed in the hotel until we got a shuttle to the airport and on the shuttle we met some other students studying in Prague as well. We navigated our way through Ataturk airport and made our way to the plane and were on our way back. Sunday night we arrived back in Prague in time to get some dinner and try to unwind a bit before classes the next day. It's Wednesday now and tomorrow afternoon we are off again. This time to Berlin to meet my family who are flying in for a little over a week. Sunday we will all take the train back to Prague and hopefully during that time I'll be able to put up a little info about what we did in Berlin.
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