Monday—Thursday August 31—September 3, 2015
We flew 6,725 miles/10,822 km nonstop from San Francisco to Istanbul. That was a long flight!
Here is a map of the center of Istanbul. Most of the sites we intend on visiting are on this map. Europe is on the left; Asia is just visible on the right side of the map.
The places we are going to visit are on this map. Note the Church in the upper right is actually a museum, but it once was a church. Most of the sites are in the lower right of the map.
The ten hour time zone difference, plus the heat and humidity, had us moving really slowly. So we decided the Underground Cistern was a great place to start our visit to Istanbul. It was built in the sixth century during the reign of Emperor Justinian.
It’s not too far off to say Istanbul (once, Constantinople), is an amazing place. We’ve only been here a few hours and already can see how several different civilizations have left their mark.
We couldn’t leave out one of the famous cistern pictures. The head is the base of a support column.
Back out in the heat, we headed for the nearby Topkapi Palace and its harem section. Work was begun in the mid–15th century, and the art is amazing. Here are three pictures taken as we walked through the very large museum.
This video gives a better sense of the size of the rooms.
A nice feature is the stained glass art. The above video shows the size of the structure.
Istanbul has a lot of enormous mosques. The one on the left is named for Süleyman the Magnificent, a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. Its construction was finished in 1558.
Here is the Bosphorus Bridge, built in 1973. Europe is on the left side, and Asia is on the right side. Istanbul also has a lot of ferry traffic.
Our next stop was the huge Spice Market, a great place. It opened in 1660.
Proprietors in Istanbul generally stand in front of their shop. Here is a dried fruit shop. The second one sells spices such as green cinnamon.
Our next stop was at the nearby Rüstem Pasha Mosque, built in 1563. The interior has a lot of beautiful ceramic tiles.
Close by is the New Mosque. We didn’t go inside it.
The next day we started out at the beautiful Blue Mosque, which opened in 1616.
Check out the scale of the support columns in this picture.
The interior is beautiful. There are a lot of wires used to hold up the electric lamps (shown in the picture above).
The Blue Mosque is the blue crescent on the map. Our next stop was the Hagia Sophia, a museum marker. Before that, it was a cathedral, then a mosque.
The Hagia Sophia was, for about one thousand years, the world’s largest cathedral. It took five years to build and opened on December 27, 537. Not 1537.
Eventually it was converted to a mosque after Constantinople was taken over by the Ottomans in 1453.
President Atatürk had it converted to a non–denominational museum in 1935.
There is quite a bit of art inside, some going back to the sixth century.
Our guidebook indicates this image and the follow one are probably from the eleventh century.
This ceiling art is definitely from the sixth century. Our book informs that the Ottomans left non–religious art intact.
From the upper floor of the museum, there is a window with a great view of more domes!
Our next stop was the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, which is air conditioned!
After lunch, we took a taxi over to the Chora Church (converted to a mosque and now a museum). The remarkable interior artwork is unchanged from the fifth century. We did not get to see the nave, which was closed for restoration work.
Tonight at dinner we discussed Turkish food and wine, and agreed both are really good (“Innocents Abroad”).
On Wednesday morning, we took a streetcar across to the “new city” and went up to Galata Tower, built as a wooden lighthouse in 528 and rebuilt in 1348 from masonry by people from Genoa.
The tower is massive—look closely at the top and people are visible.
The views from the observation floor are good. The shiny Spice Market (shaped like the letter ‘L’) is visible across the busy waterway in the next picture. The New Mosque is to the left of the Spice Market.
We strolled around on the shopping street by the tower before returning to our hotel in the older section of the city. Here is a proprietor outside of his shop.
Having been to Germany, we were surprised that Shawarma was not a common sight in Istanbul.
Much more common are vitamin shops, which make fruit drinks. This one is featuring pineapples, oranges and pomegranates.
Back on the other side of the waterway, here is a picture of the Galata Tower.
On the way to the Istanbul Archaelogical Museum, we took a photo of another common food site, a cart specializing in corn, both boiled and grilled.
Here are two photos of the extensive collection.
This statue is from Roman Anatolia.
More art. The above is from the Ishtar Gate, most of which we saw in Berlin about ten years ago.
The next morning, Thursday, we visited the biggest market in Istanbul, the Grand Bazaar. It opened for business in 1461, consists of 61 covered streets with 3,000 shops!
Then we went back to our hotel for lunch and an afternoon flight to Athens. We really liked Istanbul: the people, the food and wine and the historic sites.
After about an 11 hour flight to Istanbul, we checked in to our hotel and adjusted to ten time zones! And got ready for four full days of touring.
Next—Athens and its ancient sites.