July 30-Aug 1 The events described occurred on those days - Istanbul
I. July 30 The drive from Selcuk to Istanbul looked like a long one, over 500 km. It turned out to be longer than expected.
Before leaving the Arky Hotel I took another pool swim and then had another acceptable breakfast, but I was still sweating after bringing our luggage down from the second floor and loading the car. We got out of Selcuk without any problem and started the drive north. We passed through the outskirts of Izmir, once the center of Greek life in Asia Minor, but now Turkey's third largest city, through Manisa with many minarets and then into the mountains. Lots of ascents and tunnels which slowed us down. We passed through Balikesir, which seemed like a big city, but was not even mentioned in the tour book and then Bursa, like Konya, a center of Islamic traditionalism.
After about 6 hours of driving we came in the mid afternoon to the Topcular ferry that would take us across an arm of the Sea of Marmara (and avoid another 160 miles of driving.). There seemed to be a score of large auto ferries plying these waters and as soon as the boats were full, they took off. The fare was 60 lira and they only took cash, which just about exhausted our supply of lira. The trip took about 30 minutes. A very pleasant voyage with the sun descending in the west and lots of boats. I saw off to the east that a suspension bridge was being built that when completed I assume will put most of these ferries out of business.
Once we disembarked from the ferry the drive into Istanbul was now only about 45 km and should have been completed in an hour. I forgot to account for the bottleneck at the Bosphorus Bridge. There are only two bridges that cross the Bosphorus, and this one had 6 lanes from two roads converging into two lanes. It took us over an hour to get onto the bridge. I should have recalled the long line of cars I saw approaching the bridge when we left Istanbul in May, but I forgot. In any event, the only other alternative would have been a ferry. After that our GPS directions were perfect and to my amazement we arrived at our hotel without getting lost. That was in stark contrast to our first trip to Istanbul in May when I drove around for almost an hour and even then could not make it exactly to the same hotel. A little bit of experience goes a long way.
I booked into the Blisstanbul Hotel, located in the Sisili neighborhood. We stayed there during our brief first trip to Istanbul in May and enjoyed the hotel and its staff so we rebooked. I was surprised that several staff members remembered us when we checked in. The desk clerk, who had worked in the US, had a Virginia drivers license and liked US basketball, warmly greeted us. The shift manager who had chided us about not inquiring about the breakfast hours and the chef also warmly greeted us. We were given a room on the 7th floor. However the elevator only went up to 6. The bellman carried our bags. The room was smaller than the prior stay and overlooked an air shaft. But dinner that night in the hotel restaurant, again the menu being selected by the chef, and the breakfast the next morning were very good.
II. July 31
Istanbul is a very large city. It has over 12 million inhabitants and is the fifth largest city in the world in population. We drove through large sections of it on the Asia side coming into town and it stretched for miles on our departure three days hence. We only scratched the surface and hit the tourist highlights in our 2+ days there.
We began our tour of Istanbul pretty early. The Metro station was a 7 minute walk from the hotel, but we wasted some time trying to find a place to purchase the transit card "Istanbulkarts", to get into the Metro. We ultimately had to walk to the next station where were offers some cards by a "scalper", but I finally found a vending machine that sold the cards. 10 lira to purchase the card which can be used by multiple passengers and which the tourist book said was refundable, but none was provided when I sought one at the end of the trip, so I have a souvenir. Metro fares with the card were 1.75 euro regardless of trip length or transfers.
Six stops on the Metro took us to the Sultanahmet district, the heart of old Istanbul and site of many tourist attractions. But first we had to navigate the walk from the Metro stop to that district. We made several wrong turns, but encountered groups of college age kids dressed in blue shirts who were there to help. They were very friendly and I think volunteered to practice their English, but they ultimately got us pointed in the right direction. There are a lot of mosques in Istanbul and there are frequent and loud calls to prayer five times a day. All the mosques do not start at exactly the same time nor are their prayer calls the same. It is quite a cacophony of, sometimes annoying sound throughout the day. Luckily our hotel was not near a mosque.
We passed by the Suleymaniye mosque, one of the largest and grandest in the city. It was built in the 16th century at the direction of Sultan Suleyman I, "The Magnificent". He reigned for almost 50 years and presided over the Ottoman golden age. He codified Ottoman law, enjoyed military victories over the Hungarians conquering Rhodes, Belgrade and Budapest, conquered the North African coastal areas of what is now Tunisia and Algeria, and was the first Sultan to marry. Alas he did not enjoy martial bliss and palace intrigue brought about the death of his first two sons. He was the last Sultan to lead his army in the field and he died campaigning along the Danube. His mosque was designed by Mimur Sinan. Mimur was a Christian who was converted to Islam when he was recruited into the janizaries, the Ottoman army. His mosque design with a large central dome surrounded by smaller domes and semi domes became the standard in the Muslim world. We passed by Istanbul University and came to a main street on which a tram line ran. After changing some money, and also changing our Georgian money for lira (a bank previously refused to accept the lari) we followed the line past the Basilica Cistern, a former subterranean water storage facility that we did not enter due to a long line, and found the Aya Sofya.
There was a line at that too, but after being unable to use the machines to purchase a pass, we purchased a three day museum pass from a van (only cash). That not only provided a discount, but it enabled us to bypass the lengthy lines. While looking for a means to purchase the pass we were frequently approached by touts who graciously welcomed us and offered to help, but ended up wanting to take us to their rug, jewelry, or textile store or restaurant. One guy even promised to meet us when we came out and escort us to his restaurant.
The Aya Sofya is quite an extraordinarily beautiful building with an interesting and varied history. It was built at the direction of Byzantine emperor Justinian (yes, he was the same guy who directed the building of the Basilica of St. John in Selcuk. His building projects exhausted the treasury and weakened the Empire.) in the 6th century and began life as the Hagia Sophia church. One of the many mosaics in the building pictures him. The building functioned in that role until the 15th century when the Ottomans under Melmut the Conqueror conquered Constantinople, destroyed the last vestiges of the Byzantine Empire and converted the building into a mosque. Ataturk the nationalist declared it a museum in 1935.
As you enter the building through the huge Imperial Doors, they roll on wheels, there are several religious mosaics. As you pass those you enter a huge main space with a huge dome overhead. The latter collapsed two times due to earthquakes, but was rebuilt. There was a throne placed on a section of inlaid marble on the main floor where the Byzantine emperors were crowned. The Ottomans added 4 very large medallions overlooking the main floor, plus several other minor items, but it still seemed like a church. Next to a side entrance is a worn copper sheet attached to a pillar with a hole known as the Weeping Column. This pillar was blessed by St. Gregory the Miracle Worker and if you stick your finger in the hole your aliment(s) will be healed. The balls of my feet and toes still tingled at the end of the day.
Upstairs, which is reached by a ramp with lots of switchbacks, you get a terrific view of the main hall. The empress' throne (there were three Byzantine empresses who ruled in their own right) and more mosaics were up here. The tomb of Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice in the 13th century is up here. I find it incongruous that he is buried here since he conquered and ransacked Constantinople during one of the Crusades yet ended up having an honored place in a church whose descricration he presided over. We exited through the Beautiful Gate which has a 2d century BC bronze frame that was brought in from Rome.
We then walked to the Museum of Turkish & Islamic Arts. It was housed in a former Ottoman Palace and was built on the edge of the Byzantine hippodrome. The Palace was built for Ibrahim Pasa whose life was a roller coaster ride worthy of a Fitzgerald novel. He was born a Christian in Greece and sold as a slave into the Imperial Palace There he became friends with Suleyman who was his age. When Suleyman became Sultan he freed Ibrahim who rose through the ranks to become Grand Vizier (essentially the Prime Minister) I imagine that his success was aided by, or reflected in the fact that he married Suleyman's sister. Alas, Ibrahim's good fortune did not last. One of Suleyman's wives, Roxelana, convinced Suleyman that Ibrahim was disloyal and Suleyman had him strangled 12 years after he moved into the Palace. I do not know what happened to the sister. The museum housed a lot of calligraphy and carpets from throughout the Empire as well as the history of the Ottomans.
We then took a long walk to the Galata Bridge that spans the Golden Horn. I was seeking to eat one of the city's famous fast food fish sandwiches. However what we ended up doing was eating a full dinner at one of the many restaurants under the bridge. The food selection process consisted of waiter bringing out a platter of fish from which you selected your meal. The meal is priced by the weight of the fish selected. It was a good, long and pricey meal during which we watched the ferries coming and going, the many mosques silhouetted against the city's hills and the sun setting over the Bosphorus.
After the meal we continued walking west until we came to the Metro bridge. There is a Metro stop in the middle of the bridge and we took that back to the hotel. Very efficient. We stopped for ice cream walking back to the hotel.
The hotel offered to upgrade our room so we packed up before going to bed.
III. August 1
Following the good and filling hotel breakfast we again took the Metro to the Sultanahmut District. We walked in the direction the Topkapi Palace. However before we arrived at the Place we stopped at a cemetery with lots of cats and several smaller tombs of former sultans. We also visited the Ottoman Tombs that are adjacent to the Aya Sofya. There are separate rooms that house the tombs of five Ottoman Sultans and their families and relatives. A lot of opulence for death. Outside one of the rooms there were replicas of many tiles. The sign explained that during the 19th century the French took the originals to clean and repair them. Notwithstanding repeated Turkish requests, the originals remain in the Louvre. I suspect that the French have a different version of these events.
The Palace was built by the Ottoman emperors in stages. It is a gigantic compound set on a magnificent site overlooking the Bosphorus and looking out to Asia. There was a very expensive restaurant looking out to Asia. The name does not do it justice as it has several courtyards surrounded by many building, and a pool, and at its height housed over 4000 royals and staff/servants. The highlights included: the huge Palace Kitchen which had beautiful porcelain dinnerware that allegedly changed color if the food was poisoned; the Harem, which was the royal family's quarters, consisted of over 300 rooms including a complex for the Black Eunuchs and seemed to be under the direction of the emperor's mother; the Treasury; and the Marble Terrace. The Sultans could have up to four legitimate wives, but generally had scores of concubines. Murat III allegedly had 112 children. There even was a room set aside for circumcisions. The Baghdad Kiosk commemorated the conquest of Baghdad which I thought was particularly beautiful. There was too much to see in one day, so we left.
We then walked over to the Bazaar District. This area is home to two of Istanbul's grand Ottoman buildings, the Suleymaniye and Beyazit Mosques, but we were mosqued out so we made our way to the Grand Bazaar. This was established under Mehmet in the 15th century and has grown, I might say metastasized, into a sprawling, covered shopping mall. It is a labyrinthine market in which you can seemingly purchase anything. rankly I was overwhelmed and probably shopped out. It has main thoroughfares and narrow alleyways in which goods are not only sold, but they are also produced by local craftsmen. This would be heaven for someone who likes to shop and bargain. One could easily spend days inside, but we did not.
We had reserved tickets for a Dervish ceremony that evening through our hotel, but we had to find the performance site in the Faith district to pay for and pick them up. That was a bit of a walk and by the time we got there we needed to eat in the immediate area of the event. We ate at a small restaurant, lured in by the entries of a barker and the promise of a flaming meal prepared in a clay pot in a short time. The meal's preparation was a dramatic performance performed in the narrow street.
It is a religious ceremony during which no words are spoken. It begins with extended chanting which is the most important part of the ceremony. Then the whirling begins. There were six whirlers dressed in long coats. They seemed to be in a trance. The whirling enables the adherents to achieve a higher union with God. It lasted about 75 minutes and was an interesting ceremony.
After that we walked back to the Metro station on the bridge and returned to our hotel. We had been moved to a more spacious room that did not funnel noise up the air shaft.
I. July 30 The drive from Selcuk to Istanbul looked like a long one, over 500 km. It turned out to be longer than expected.
Before leaving the Arky Hotel I took another pool swim and then had another acceptable breakfast, but I was still sweating after bringing our luggage down from the second floor and loading the car. We got out of Selcuk without any problem and started the drive north. We passed through the outskirts of Izmir, once the center of Greek life in Asia Minor, but now Turkey's third largest city, through Manisa with many minarets and then into the mountains. Lots of ascents and tunnels which slowed us down. We passed through Balikesir, which seemed like a big city, but was not even mentioned in the tour book and then Bursa, like Konya, a center of Islamic traditionalism.
After about 6 hours of driving we came in the mid afternoon to the Topcular ferry that would take us across an arm of the Sea of Marmara (and avoid another 160 miles of driving.). There seemed to be a score of large auto ferries plying these waters and as soon as the boats were full, they took off. The fare was 60 lira and they only took cash, which just about exhausted our supply of lira. The trip took about 30 minutes. A very pleasant voyage with the sun descending in the west and lots of boats. I saw off to the east that a suspension bridge was being built that when completed I assume will put most of these ferries out of business.
Once we disembarked from the ferry the drive into Istanbul was now only about 45 km and should have been completed in an hour. I forgot to account for the bottleneck at the Bosphorus Bridge. There are only two bridges that cross the Bosphorus, and this one had 6 lanes from two roads converging into two lanes. It took us over an hour to get onto the bridge. I should have recalled the long line of cars I saw approaching the bridge when we left Istanbul in May, but I forgot. In any event, the only other alternative would have been a ferry. After that our GPS directions were perfect and to my amazement we arrived at our hotel without getting lost. That was in stark contrast to our first trip to Istanbul in May when I drove around for almost an hour and even then could not make it exactly to the same hotel. A little bit of experience goes a long way.
I booked into the Blisstanbul Hotel, located in the Sisili neighborhood. We stayed there during our brief first trip to Istanbul in May and enjoyed the hotel and its staff so we rebooked. I was surprised that several staff members remembered us when we checked in. The desk clerk, who had worked in the US, had a Virginia drivers license and liked US basketball, warmly greeted us. The shift manager who had chided us about not inquiring about the breakfast hours and the chef also warmly greeted us. We were given a room on the 7th floor. However the elevator only went up to 6. The bellman carried our bags. The room was smaller than the prior stay and overlooked an air shaft. But dinner that night in the hotel restaurant, again the menu being selected by the chef, and the breakfast the next morning were very good.
II. July 31
Istanbul is a very large city. It has over 12 million inhabitants and is the fifth largest city in the world in population. We drove through large sections of it on the Asia side coming into town and it stretched for miles on our departure three days hence. We only scratched the surface and hit the tourist highlights in our 2+ days there.
We began our tour of Istanbul pretty early. The Metro station was a 7 minute walk from the hotel, but we wasted some time trying to find a place to purchase the transit card "Istanbulkarts", to get into the Metro. We ultimately had to walk to the next station where were offers some cards by a "scalper", but I finally found a vending machine that sold the cards. 10 lira to purchase the card which can be used by multiple passengers and which the tourist book said was refundable, but none was provided when I sought one at the end of the trip, so I have a souvenir. Metro fares with the card were 1.75 euro regardless of trip length or transfers.
Six stops on the Metro took us to the Sultanahmet district, the heart of old Istanbul and site of many tourist attractions. But first we had to navigate the walk from the Metro stop to that district. We made several wrong turns, but encountered groups of college age kids dressed in blue shirts who were there to help. They were very friendly and I think volunteered to practice their English, but they ultimately got us pointed in the right direction. There are a lot of mosques in Istanbul and there are frequent and loud calls to prayer five times a day. All the mosques do not start at exactly the same time nor are their prayer calls the same. It is quite a cacophony of, sometimes annoying sound throughout the day. Luckily our hotel was not near a mosque.
We passed by the Suleymaniye mosque, one of the largest and grandest in the city. It was built in the 16th century at the direction of Sultan Suleyman I, "The Magnificent". He reigned for almost 50 years and presided over the Ottoman golden age. He codified Ottoman law, enjoyed military victories over the Hungarians conquering Rhodes, Belgrade and Budapest, conquered the North African coastal areas of what is now Tunisia and Algeria, and was the first Sultan to marry. Alas he did not enjoy martial bliss and palace intrigue brought about the death of his first two sons. He was the last Sultan to lead his army in the field and he died campaigning along the Danube. His mosque was designed by Mimur Sinan. Mimur was a Christian who was converted to Islam when he was recruited into the janizaries, the Ottoman army. His mosque design with a large central dome surrounded by smaller domes and semi domes became the standard in the Muslim world. We passed by Istanbul University and came to a main street on which a tram line ran. After changing some money, and also changing our Georgian money for lira (a bank previously refused to accept the lari) we followed the line past the Basilica Cistern, a former subterranean water storage facility that we did not enter due to a long line, and found the Aya Sofya.
There was a line at that too, but after being unable to use the machines to purchase a pass, we purchased a three day museum pass from a van (only cash). That not only provided a discount, but it enabled us to bypass the lengthy lines. While looking for a means to purchase the pass we were frequently approached by touts who graciously welcomed us and offered to help, but ended up wanting to take us to their rug, jewelry, or textile store or restaurant. One guy even promised to meet us when we came out and escort us to his restaurant.
The Aya Sofya is quite an extraordinarily beautiful building with an interesting and varied history. It was built at the direction of Byzantine emperor Justinian (yes, he was the same guy who directed the building of the Basilica of St. John in Selcuk. His building projects exhausted the treasury and weakened the Empire.) in the 6th century and began life as the Hagia Sophia church. One of the many mosaics in the building pictures him. The building functioned in that role until the 15th century when the Ottomans under Melmut the Conqueror conquered Constantinople, destroyed the last vestiges of the Byzantine Empire and converted the building into a mosque. Ataturk the nationalist declared it a museum in 1935.
As you enter the building through the huge Imperial Doors, they roll on wheels, there are several religious mosaics. As you pass those you enter a huge main space with a huge dome overhead. The latter collapsed two times due to earthquakes, but was rebuilt. There was a throne placed on a section of inlaid marble on the main floor where the Byzantine emperors were crowned. The Ottomans added 4 very large medallions overlooking the main floor, plus several other minor items, but it still seemed like a church. Next to a side entrance is a worn copper sheet attached to a pillar with a hole known as the Weeping Column. This pillar was blessed by St. Gregory the Miracle Worker and if you stick your finger in the hole your aliment(s) will be healed. The balls of my feet and toes still tingled at the end of the day.
Upstairs, which is reached by a ramp with lots of switchbacks, you get a terrific view of the main hall. The empress' throne (there were three Byzantine empresses who ruled in their own right) and more mosaics were up here. The tomb of Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice in the 13th century is up here. I find it incongruous that he is buried here since he conquered and ransacked Constantinople during one of the Crusades yet ended up having an honored place in a church whose descricration he presided over. We exited through the Beautiful Gate which has a 2d century BC bronze frame that was brought in from Rome.
We then walked to the Museum of Turkish & Islamic Arts. It was housed in a former Ottoman Palace and was built on the edge of the Byzantine hippodrome. The Palace was built for Ibrahim Pasa whose life was a roller coaster ride worthy of a Fitzgerald novel. He was born a Christian in Greece and sold as a slave into the Imperial Palace There he became friends with Suleyman who was his age. When Suleyman became Sultan he freed Ibrahim who rose through the ranks to become Grand Vizier (essentially the Prime Minister) I imagine that his success was aided by, or reflected in the fact that he married Suleyman's sister. Alas, Ibrahim's good fortune did not last. One of Suleyman's wives, Roxelana, convinced Suleyman that Ibrahim was disloyal and Suleyman had him strangled 12 years after he moved into the Palace. I do not know what happened to the sister. The museum housed a lot of calligraphy and carpets from throughout the Empire as well as the history of the Ottomans.
We then took a long walk to the Galata Bridge that spans the Golden Horn. I was seeking to eat one of the city's famous fast food fish sandwiches. However what we ended up doing was eating a full dinner at one of the many restaurants under the bridge. The food selection process consisted of waiter bringing out a platter of fish from which you selected your meal. The meal is priced by the weight of the fish selected. It was a good, long and pricey meal during which we watched the ferries coming and going, the many mosques silhouetted against the city's hills and the sun setting over the Bosphorus.
After the meal we continued walking west until we came to the Metro bridge. There is a Metro stop in the middle of the bridge and we took that back to the hotel. Very efficient. We stopped for ice cream walking back to the hotel.
The hotel offered to upgrade our room so we packed up before going to bed.
III. August 1
Following the good and filling hotel breakfast we again took the Metro to the Sultanahmut District. We walked in the direction the Topkapi Palace. However before we arrived at the Place we stopped at a cemetery with lots of cats and several smaller tombs of former sultans. We also visited the Ottoman Tombs that are adjacent to the Aya Sofya. There are separate rooms that house the tombs of five Ottoman Sultans and their families and relatives. A lot of opulence for death. Outside one of the rooms there were replicas of many tiles. The sign explained that during the 19th century the French took the originals to clean and repair them. Notwithstanding repeated Turkish requests, the originals remain in the Louvre. I suspect that the French have a different version of these events.
The Palace was built by the Ottoman emperors in stages. It is a gigantic compound set on a magnificent site overlooking the Bosphorus and looking out to Asia. There was a very expensive restaurant looking out to Asia. The name does not do it justice as it has several courtyards surrounded by many building, and a pool, and at its height housed over 4000 royals and staff/servants. The highlights included: the huge Palace Kitchen which had beautiful porcelain dinnerware that allegedly changed color if the food was poisoned; the Harem, which was the royal family's quarters, consisted of over 300 rooms including a complex for the Black Eunuchs and seemed to be under the direction of the emperor's mother; the Treasury; and the Marble Terrace. The Sultans could have up to four legitimate wives, but generally had scores of concubines. Murat III allegedly had 112 children. There even was a room set aside for circumcisions. The Baghdad Kiosk commemorated the conquest of Baghdad which I thought was particularly beautiful. There was too much to see in one day, so we left.
We then walked over to the Bazaar District. This area is home to two of Istanbul's grand Ottoman buildings, the Suleymaniye and Beyazit Mosques, but we were mosqued out so we made our way to the Grand Bazaar. This was established under Mehmet in the 15th century and has grown, I might say metastasized, into a sprawling, covered shopping mall. It is a labyrinthine market in which you can seemingly purchase anything. rankly I was overwhelmed and probably shopped out. It has main thoroughfares and narrow alleyways in which goods are not only sold, but they are also produced by local craftsmen. This would be heaven for someone who likes to shop and bargain. One could easily spend days inside, but we did not.
We had reserved tickets for a Dervish ceremony that evening through our hotel, but we had to find the performance site in the Faith district to pay for and pick them up. That was a bit of a walk and by the time we got there we needed to eat in the immediate area of the event. We ate at a small restaurant, lured in by the entries of a barker and the promise of a flaming meal prepared in a clay pot in a short time. The meal's preparation was a dramatic performance performed in the narrow street.
It is a religious ceremony during which no words are spoken. It begins with extended chanting which is the most important part of the ceremony. Then the whirling begins. There were six whirlers dressed in long coats. They seemed to be in a trance. The whirling enables the adherents to achieve a higher union with God. It lasted about 75 minutes and was an interesting ceremony.
After that we walked back to the Metro station on the bridge and returned to our hotel. We had been moved to a more spacious room that did not funnel noise up the air shaft.
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