İstanbul, Türkey

Sarah on the Galata Bridge spanning the Golden Horn, an inlet of the Bosphorus.
İstanbul's Historical Peninsula is in the background.

It used to be Constantinople; before that it was Byzantium. Now, it's İstanbul.

We spent ten days in Türkey, almost all of it in İstanbul. And almost all of our time in İstanbul was spent in the Historical Peninsula.

From our historic hotel in the historic district, we could easily walk to the major sites, and frequently did. The Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia (Aya Sofya) and the Topkapi Palace were all within a few minutes stroll. The phenomenal archeology museum was on the grounds of the Topkapi. The large Süleymayiye Mosque and the harbor were about a 20 minute walk.

Public transit was readily available, rapid and inexpensive. We used it several times, especially when leaving the city.

Sarah at an underground Metro station.
One of the many tulip-themed decorations celebrating Türkey's development of the tulip.
The tulip (which means 'turban') was stolen by another country, which shall remain nameless.
[Actually, the country has a name, but I'm not mentioning it.]

I knew when I took the photos that the cloudy skies would prevent me from having crisp outdoor pictures. I had hoped to re-shoot the exterior of İstanbul buildings on a sunny day, but the only sunny day that we had was the day we took the cruise up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea; those shots are good. As for the interior shots: many of the buildings were so huge that camera flash was useless and the ambient light came from compact florescent bulbs which simulated oil lamps. Tripods were not permitted. Therefore, my photos do not do justice to the beauty that we saw in İstanbul.

Click on the photos to enlarge them. Click on the links for better photos than I could have taken, even under the best of circumstances.

It turns out that I have a lot more friends in İstanbul than I had imagined. And each one of them has a cousin that sells rugs for a good price. This was a lot different than being in a bazaar and dawdling in front of a stand; my new friends came up to us as we walked down the Hippodrome past the Blue Mosque (as we did daily) and engaged us in conversation.

The gentleman who showed us the silk rug to the right explained the rug process to us and showed us a variety of rugs without any pressure to buy. Sarah and I were fascinated by the silver rug in the photo. Other than the craftsmanship or the near microscopic knots, when the salesman quickly spun it 180 degrees, its color changed to gold. Sarah had him do it several times as I took photos. [Approx. $4,000, but that's negotiable. (Not negotiable enough for us)]

While it seemed that Sarah spent a lot of time examining items to bring home, by going to different shops she discovered differences in quality among seemingly similar items. She became adept in distinguishing between items made in Türkey and those from the Far East.

Salesmen offer much assistance, but for many their role was more to deceive the tourist into buying lower quality items for a small difference in price giving them a greater profit.

Caveat emptor.

Shops were in trouble. Not only was it the off season, but global economic conditions further reduced foot traffic. In order to keep up, shopkeepers have to do their best to get you to buy from them rather than the next guy.

But we didn't go to İstanbul to shop, at least I didn't.

Hagia Sophia




Built c. 530 CE to be the largest church in the world (and it was for 1,000 years), 'The Church of Holy Wisdom' became a mosque in 1453 with the Muslim conquest of Constantinople. It became a museum after the Türkish Republic replaced the Ottoman Empire.

Additional outside photos:




















Muslim culture does not permit representations of living things. Offending images such as people, plants or animals were out; geometric shapes were in.

It was a good thing for the museum that in 1453 the new owners plastered over the offending mosaics rather than chopping them out; that way they were preserved and all the museum had to do was remove the plaster, which wasn't as easy as it sounds.









Inside:

The nave

As you can see, the interior is immense. The dome that you see in the above photo is not the large dome. The large dome, the architectural feat which set the standard for churches and mosques, is in the photo below.

In bright sunshine, the placement of the ring of windows makes the dome appear to be floating. The dome is held up by four pillars. One of the pillars (with the angel) is in the bottom center of the photo.

Below are some more interior photos:

{--- Entry door

Nave ---}

{--- Oil lamps (now electric)

One of the four pillars supporting the dome.
Each has an angel ---}

{--- Niche from where prayers are offered


Platform & stairs from which the imam speaks. The imam does not speak from the top as he is not as great as Mohammad ---}

{--- Sultan's loggia


Water vessel ---}

The Blue Mosque

Sultan Ahmed Mosque

Despite its appearance in the above photos, the beautiful Sultan Ahmed mosque is popularly known as the Blue Mosque for the interior decorations. While large, it's not the largest mosque among İstanbul's 4,000 mosques. For more information about the Blue Mosque, click here.

Topkapi Palace

A residence and place of business, the Topkapi Palace in İstanbul was where the sultans of the Ottoman Empire ran much of the world for almost four centuries.
Then they moved to the Dolmabaçhe Palace.
(More about that later.)

During Ottoman rule, the Topkapi Palace is where the sultan lived, entertained and met with petitioners and foreign dignitaries. Practically everything is tiled. After a while, my eyes glazed over, too. It appears that Sultan Mehmet II, who built the Topkapi c. 1475 knew that tile was both decorative and easy to clean. As with Formica, it may have been too much of a good thing.

In any case, it put a lot of Türkish craftsmen to work and busy hands don't usually revolt. Sarah loved the tile. However, she's not a big fan of Formica.

As for the rooms: There were a lot of them. They had tile walls, often tile floors and tiled platforms with cushions for sitting.

The family's living areas were separate from the public areas. A large staff (sometimes 200) of eunuchs protected the family. Eunuchs don't usually revolt, either.

To learn more about the Topkapi Palace, click here.

What did I say about tile?

If you'd like to see more photos, click here.

After 400 years, the Topkapi Palace had seen its day and the current sultan wanted to have a palace similar to those of European royalty. It also helped to not look primative when dealing with the uppity Europeans. The answer was the Dolmabaçhe Palace.


Dolmabaçhe Palace

Photo taken a few days after our visit as we cruised by on the Bosphorus.

The Front Gate

The Front Door

As you can see by the photos above, the Dolmabaçhe Palace has a long coast line, but the property is not very wide by palace standards. It lacks the kind of extensive lawns and gardens that are within the Topkapi walls. Is was built on a filled swamp along the Bosphorus. As 'Dolmabaçhe' means 'filled land' in Türkish, it's a good thing that the palace wasn't built on a garbage dump.

Commissioned c. 1850, the Dolmabaçhe Palace brought the sultan of the Ottoman Empire up to the living standards of the royalty of Europe. It's true that he had more wives (concurrently), but he also had less money. Maybe the two go together. Maybe concubines also play a role. To learn more about the Dolmabaçhe Palace, click here.

Photography was not permitted inside of the palace, so you are not going to see photos of the world's largest crystal chandelier or other nifty things that are inside of the Dolmabaçhe Palace on my blog, but you will see them if you click here.

The sultans continued to live in the palace until the creation of the Turkish Republic. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president of Türkey, moved in.


İstanbul Arkoloji Müzeleri

The Ottoman Empire controlled much of the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Europe. One of the sultans decided to centralize important archeological artifacts near him in İstanbul. These items are now under the control of the İstanbul Arkoloji Müzeleri which is on the grounds of the Topkapi Palace. The museum's collections are housed in several buildings. We spent an entire day here and didn't see everything and, because of time constraints, many items that we did see did not get all of the attention which they deserved. So many artifacts, so little time.

Archeology Collection





































The Tiled Pavilion









Tiled rooms with displays of decorative tiles and porcelain plates and lamps












The Ancient Orient Collection

The earliest known peace treaty is on display along with many objects, both large and small.
(As the treaty lasted only a few years, it wasn't worth the clay it was inscribed on.)
To see items from the collection, click here.

Up the Bosphorus

We held out for a sunny day to take our cruise up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea. The one and only such day of our time in İstanbul came shortly before we had to leave. The sunshine gave me the opportunity to take some better photos of the palaces, forts and other interesting structures along the European and Asian shores.

Our ferry docked at Anadolu Kavaği
during the three hour layover.

We cruised under the first bridge to span the continents of Europe and Asia. This was not a major event for us as it is now recognized that Europe is NOT a continent, but a peninsula of Asia. Also, several years ago we had been on the bridge which connects North America to Europe. Therefore, in actuality, that bridge connects North America to Asia.

We relax with tulip-shaped cups of apple tea aboard the ferry.

Sights along the way:









{--- Presidential Residence

Famous dead person lived here ---}





{--- Ancient fortress

Famous dead person lived here ---}





{--- Famous dead person lived here

Famous dead person vacationed here ---}





Anadolu Kavaği

It appears that Anadolu Kavaği is almost entirely a tourist town. This small village on the Asian side of the Bosphorus near to the opening of the Black Sea has the ruins of a castle, a military base (restricted) and lots of restaurants.

When the ferry docked at noon, one group of passengers headed for the restaurants; another group headed for a hike up to the ruin. Sarah and I wandered through the village looking at the sights and for the bakery which sold the local anchovy bread mentioned in one of the tour guides.



Ruin or restaurant? A decision had to be made.






By they time we decided to have lunch (not much of a decision), we were the only people on the streets. A flock of waiters, flapping menus and proffering discounts, descended on us as we walked around town examining our options.

{--- Before & After---}

Sarah was disappointed that she was unable get 'lokma,' balls of dough boiled in a sweet syrup, which has been written about in a guidebook. She had to settle for pastry at a patisserie as the shop which sold the lokma was only open on weekends during the off-season.

As luck would have it, when we got off of the ferry back in İstanbul, there were fresh lokma bubbling away on a cart.

Sarah refused to use the tuvalet on the boat coming back from the Black Sea because it was a) squatting, b) bouncing and c) sloshing. You know what that means...

...cheese cake (and a western commode).
This time at Junior's on the Galata Bridge.

Süleymayiye Mosque

The Süleymayiye Mosque complex, built by Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent c. 1550, is the largest of İstanbul's mosques. It sits on a hill and dominates the skyline. The dome is even larger than the one atop Hagia Sofia.

Foot-washing stations were found at all of the mosques we visited.

Synagogues

Jews have been in İstanbul since at least Roman times, but there was a large influx c. 1492 when Spain and Portugal expelled their Jewish citizens and began their Inquisitions. The sultan at the time issued an edict welcoming the displaced Jews into his empire and put a penalty of death on anyone who should harass them. (A copy of this edict is on display in the synagogue / museum.)

There are about a dozen active synagogues in Greater İstanbul, but none of the active ones are in the historic area where we were staying. We visited the 1850s synagogue just across the Golden Horn inlet when we took the tram across the Galata Bridge to tour the 'New City'.

The building is now a Jewish museum dedicated to the 500th anniversary of Iberian Jews coming to Türkey.


Bazaars


There are two large bazaars in İstanbul: The Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar has 4,000 shops. In reality, it has the same 40 shops 100 times over.

There are also smaller bazaars and impromptu bazaars. One can tell it's an impromptu bazaar when the merchants grab their stock and run when the police come by.

Basilica Cistern

Residents of the neighborhood thought that they had some really great wells. Archeologists discovered that there was a 27 million gallon cistern under the area that was built in the 6th century by the Byzantines. [So that's where the old Roman aqueduct up town was going.]

The Basilica Cistern is now a tourist attraction. It is dark, dank and drippy. Excess water is piped out; classical music is piped in. There is a cafe down there, too.
Larger than two football fields, the cistern's ceiling is held up by 336 recycled marble columns

Roman Wall


Surrounding İstanbul is a wall that was built by the Romans during Roman times. The wall served to protect Constantinople from invaders for more than 1,000 years. Some sections of the wall are no longer standing or are in poor shape, but Türkey has one of the world's largest armies.

[Fearing invasion, a chain to keep boats out of the Goldern Horn (the Bosphorus inlet) was installed shortly before the final siege.]

















In 1453, with the neutrality of the Genoese who had control of Galata, the north side of the Golden Horn, Ottoman Türks, under the leadership of Sultan Mehmed II, transported a fleet of galleys over the hill on the far side of the Golden Horn during a single night to bypass the chain and use a new weapon, cannon, against the old Roman wall. The wall was was breached and the Byzantine Empire became part of the Ottoman Empire with Constantinople as its capital.

The name Constantinople continued until after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and became İstanbul in 1930 after the formation of the Türkish Republic.

In 2011, we came.

On a parting note:

İstanbul is on a peninsula between the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus, not far from the Black Sea. It is a seafood town. As a cosmopolitan city, restaurants may serve many dishes from all over Türkey, or all over the world, but the fish is really fresh.

At the foot of the Galata Bridge (either side):
Mackerel fillet, right off of the grill, with salad on a hero roll: $2.50.