Istanbul

Now that we have home internet access, I can finally do justice to our trip to Istanbul. We stayed in a lovely hotel that was a converted Ottoman mansion, with a nice garden patio and a rooftop terrace overlooking the Sea of Marmara.
Of course, we were pretty beat by the time we got to the hotel but we decided to get out and explore our surroundings a bit.

The hotel was located in the historic district and just a few minutes walk to some of the main attractions like the Hippodrome, Blue Mosque, and Hagia Sophia - more on those to come. After a brief tour of the area, we had dinner on the terrace of a nearby restaurant with a view of the Blue Mosque and the sea.

The next morning we awoke and had a very nice breakfast on the terrace of the hotel before heading out for a day of excursion. We started off passing the monuments of the Hippodrome

and then on to the Blue Mosque, and you can see it's as impressive inside as out.
From there we walked over to the Grand Bazaar, but didn't really do any shopping. Our plan was to take a bus out to the old city walls, but after waiting almost an hour at a busy bus depot, we were beginning to get discouraged. Fortunately we met a couple from Catalon who was waiting for the same bus, and we agreed to share a taxi up to our mutual destination - Chora Church.

Chora Church is known for it's mosaics - what's left of them is certainly impressive.



We walked from the church up to the old city walls, which date back to Roman times. Unfortunately, we met a 'friendly local' who showed us the way up onto the wall, where we had incredible views of the city.
I say unfortunately, because he then attempted to shine our sneakers and when we refused he demanded money. We refused to pay, but I was a little nervous that he might push us off the wall.

We followed the wall to the remains of a Roman palace that was built into it, which was closed for reconstruction.
Then we got lost, but by following the downward slope, we reached the ferry dock we were aiming for along the Golden Horn (a body of water leading into the Boshporus - which connects the Sea of Marmara with the Black Sea - keep that in mind). Our plan was to take the ferry back down to the old city center, but we were so caught up in the views that we missed our stop and ended up in Asia!
Don't worry, Asia is just across the Bosphorus, only one stop too far. Since we were there, we had lunch in Asia before catching the Ferry back only to miss our stop again and go too far up. In this case, it worked out in our favor, as we were able to see the Bulgarian Orthodox Church we had passed earlier. The church was closed but a passing Turkish lady also wanted to go in and convinced the groundskeeper to let us through.

It was pretty neat - apparently it is an iron pre-fabricated church, which was built in the 19th century and is also one of the few remaining such churches.

We then took a liesurely stroll along the Golden Horn before heading inland towards the Aquaduct of Valens - another Roman relic.
Then it was on to another large mosque, which we saw from the ferry.
We got a little bit lost on our way back to the hotel but found the Grand Bazaar again and got our bearings. For dinner, we ate at a restaurant right on the Hippodrome with spectacular views of the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia before turning in for the night.

The next day (Tuesday) we paid a visit to the Basilica Cistern, which is pretty amazing even though it was only intended to be a water tank,


although the visit was marred a bit by Eurotrash tourists who kept messing up my pictures of the mysterious Medusa heads. And they say American tourists are loud, rude and obnoxious. I'll give you loud, but no one beats the Europeans for rude and obnoxious. I mean, come on, I'm sitting there with my camera, trying to take a picture, and you're going to act like you don't see all 6'3" and 190 pounds of me and >put your big French butt in my face?! Get outta here!

But I digress. After the cistern, we toured the Hagia Sophia - a spectacular structure for any time period, but even more so for being built in the 6th century. Peeling paint and scaffolding can't hide the beauty of this church, (it was a church before being converted to a mosque), although the giant wooden circles painted with Arabic script detract from the overall effect in my opinion.

On the upper level there were some nice mosaics and great views of the Blue Mosque as well.

We followed the Hagia Sophia with another misbegotten adventure. I took a wrong turn on the way down to the ferry docks and didn't realize it until we had already walked around a good part of the peninsula on which historic Istanbul is built. I can't even say it was a particularly pleasant walk since it was hot and took place along a busy highway. Oh well, at least we got there eventually. I have to mention at this point that Stephanie was a real trooper while being dragged all over the place.

We had some street food at the docks before boarding a Ferry for a scenic trip up the Bosphorus. I have to comment on the boarding process as well. Stephanie and I were among the first people in line, but sure enough, as the boarding time approached, people started trying to creep up ahead of us. Some were particularly brazen, including some local women and, of course, some Europeans. By the time we were allowed to board the tension was palpable, with much jostling. I felt that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach, like at the start of a crew race. When the gate opened I found myself in a desperate race with a young Russian boy and an old Turkish woman to get a seat on the coveted back upper deck of the boat - where the best views are. Needless to say I scored us a seat.

The trip was mostly pleasant, with great views of the Bosphorus Bridges, old mansions, palaces, and forts.





The only thing that marred it a bit was an annoying Turkish woman who somehow managed to crowed out several other people from their seats to get them for her friend and daughter simply by forcing herself into a seat that wasn't a seat and then being so obnoxious that the people next to her left.

We stopped for lunch (again in Asia) near the entrance to the Black Sea. You could tell that the little town we stopped in was geared to the tourists on the Ferry as we experienced some of the worst hassling and highest prices of our whole trip. At least it had a good view.
Then, after another amazing race for the back deck, we had a considerably more peaceful trip back to Istanbul.

Back in the city, we walked across the Galata Bridge to... Galata and had a small meal while awaiting the chance to watch a very nice sunset. There were some neat cafes and shops under the bridge and it would have been nice to stick around, but we wanted to get back to our neighborhood before dark. On the way we picked up a variety of Baklava to snack on.

We reached the Hippodrome area just as the lights were coming on, ate our dessert, snapped a few pictures and then headed back to the hotel.

Our last day consisted of a visit to the Topkapi Palace, which had the added bonus of a live music performance,



and then on to the Spice Bazaar for a little shopping.
It was a pretty cool place with surprisingly little hassling.

We wrapped up our day back at the hotel with some tea in the patio garden before our ride picked us up for the airport. If you've read the earlier posts you already know the rest of our

trip to Dushanbe. If you didn't, go read it because I'm not writing it again. The pictures here are just a sample. If you want to see more, here's a link to the entire album:

Istanbul 09 JPGS

I apologize for the lower quality. I had to reduce file size for the sake of speed. That's all for now. Since we have most of our belongings, I'm going to wait until we have our house in order

before posting pictures of it.

Later.