Istanbul Days 5 and 6

Across my final two days here, I've mainly spent my time doing what everybody else who comes to Istanbul does. Here's the rundown.

Guided Tours – For many of the attractions in today's entry, I was part of a 7-person guided tour. I had never done a guided tour in my life before coming here because I usually (always) prefer finding stuff on my own and wandering around at my own pace. That being said, I absolutely recommend booking a small tour for most of the sights you want to see in the Old City. Having one for the Basilica Cistern would be useless and I didn't think it was important at Hagia Sophia either. But the other places? Yes. The guides themselves may or may not add value. Our guide was a recent college grad who got her degree in travel management (which includes a crazy amount of study related to Turkish history, among other things) and passed the government’s national certifying exam. She’s basically a travel guide CPA, which means she guides 50 weeks a year all across Turkey (usually but not always in or near Istanbul). She told me that a lot of the people on the tours are annoying and it gets really old at times, which I thought was pretty amusing / predictable. Anyway, the guide knew a lot of stuff and could answer any question that was thrown at her (of course she could’ve been making it all up), but the main upside to having a guide is that you don’t have to wait in line at the sights and you avoid the never-ending stream of locals calling you “friend,” asking you where you’re from in America, and wondering if you know their uncle who lives in [insert name of city here].

Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent - This mosque, not the more famous Blue Mosque, is the biggest of the 3,000+ mosques in the city. It was built on the order of the most magnificent of the sultans (if conquering other nations is important, which seems reasonable enough to me). I can't help thinking that it sounds an awful lot like what the Veggie Tales guys would name a sultan, but maybe that's because I'm tired and sort of ready to be home. You may also be interested in knowing that the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent looks remarkably like 99% of the other mosques in Istanbul. (Note: If you took all of the mosques, put them next to each other, and added regulation shrubbery and homeowner's association fees, there would be definite similarities with late 20th century U.S. subdivisions.) Suleyman's Mosque holds about 5,000 men and approximately 80 women. I've included a picture of one of the two holding pens that women are required to occupy.

Chora Church – Chora Church provides the best representation of Byzantine era mosaics in all of Turkey. When the Ottomans conquered the city, they plastered or whitewashed over all of the mosaics (no, I am not kidding), but most things were restored in the 1940s by a group of American conservationists. Kudos to the Turks for letting that happen, as this is a small but very cool place. It probably would've been sort of boring as a small church with all white interior walls. And as you look at the pictures below, keep in mind that most of them are mosaics. If you expand the pics, it's more obvious.

Small Blue Mosque - This mosque, which also looks remarkably like a mosque, is the other main "blue" mosque in Istanbul. This mosque was ordered to be built by Suleyman the Magnificent in honor of his son-in-law. It would be very hard to find on your own and it actually was sort of cool (i.e., empty and quiet unlike the rest of the city), so I was happy that the guide chose to take us here. She said it's way easier to get a feel for the blue mosaics here than in the Blue Mosque itself because there is nobody around at this one. Score. So yes, there are mosaics here. And they are blue. The last picture features the name of Mohammed. And you thought English was complicated.

Spice Bazaar - The term "Spice Bazaar" is Ottoman for "place where trillions of tourists can be found buying the same five things from 100 or so different merchants in an enclosed space." If you want to buy spices, turkish delight, nuts, scarves, cheap necklaces, or evil eye trinkets, and if you want to have the opportunity to purchase the exact same spices, turkish delight, nuts, scarves, cheap necklaces, or evil eye trinkets from a different vendor no more than 10 feet away from the vendor who currently is hassling you to buy his spices, turkish delight, nuts, scarves, cheap necklaces, or evil eye trinkets, you need look no further. I should also mention that in the underground walkway leading to the area that contains the Spice Bazaar, you can buy underwear for 2 Turkish lira (about 80 cents) a pair from a gentleman who has set up shop in the middle of the stairs. Book your flight today! The pics below include the Bazaar and the walkway. Unfortunately I didn't manage to catch the underwear salesman, but you can see our guide's purple polka-dot umbrella leading us through the maze.

Basilica Cistern - The Basilica Cistern was built by the Romans in the 6th century. It's about as big as two football fields and holds around 30 million gallons of water. I believe that it was fed by aqueducts, at least one of which is still standing (the remains are, anyway). There may be more, but I only saw one. It also includes a couple of Medusa heads that were picked up second-hand from earlier Roman structures. If you've seen the original Clash of the Titans movie, the cistern-type feel with Medusa element will be familiar to you. It's not exactly the same concept, obviously, but there are definite similarities.

Hagia Sophia - Hagia Sophia -- the Great Church of Constantinople -- is to Istanbul as Notre Dame is to Paris as Westminster Abbey is to London as Kyle Field is to College Station. It (Hagia Sophia, not Kyle Field) was built by the Roman Emperor Justinian in the 6th century and is uniformly viewed as the crowning achievement of Byzantine architecture. After the Ottomans conquered the city it was converted into a mosque and a lot of the offending Christian stuff was covered in plaster, just like in Chora Church. Hagia Sophia has been operating as a museum since the 1930s. Like most of the other major sights in Istanbul, it currently is under restoration in the hopes that the city will be chosen to host the 2020 Olympics. Talk about chaos ... the Olympics in Istanbul? Anyway, I wasn't able to get a good picture of the outside of it. Frankly, it is too big. Reportedly you could fit Notre Dame inside of Hagia Sophia, although I'm not real sure I believe that. Anyway, it certainly is a must-see.

Closing Bullets

• Our tour guide said that although Turkey is 98% Muslim, it is a very secular country. Here are my own data: during my stay (1) I was very near several mosques when calls to prayer were occurring; (2) I never saw more than 25 people come off the street and go inside; (3) Istanbul is home to about 15 million people. I will let you do the math there with respect to the importance of religion to the average Turk. I mean yes, there are more women wearing black robes with eye slits in Istanbul than in Dallas, but still ...
• Syrian refugees are drifting in to parts of Istanbul. However, those who are doing so are having to come a mighty long way. For example, it's about as far from Aleppo to Istanbul as it is from Istanbul to Vienna. Istanbul certainly isn't for everyone, but if you believe it is for you, then there's no compelling reason for you NOT to come here ... at least for now. There is no way I would come back to the Old City again (too chaotic), but I certainly would return to the area where I spent the first three days.
• If you want to visit Istanbul, you can do so relatively cheaply. There are direct flights from a number of major U.S. airports on Turkish Airlines, and I have never had a better flying experience. Not even close. Airfare is less than it is to the major cities in western Europe and it costs far less to stay and eat well in Istanbul than it does in other large European cities.
• Food is terrific and healthy. And if you like licorice, Raki definitely is your beverage.
• This comment is not directly related to Turkey, but if I were Sultan (maybe Mike the Intolerant??) we would have a serious selfie stick smashing ceremony.

My flight leaves Istanbul at 1:20 p.m. (5:20 a.m., Texas time) and I get back to San Antonio at 10:25 p.m. Texas time. It's 13 hours in the air to Houston, followed by a three-hour layover prior to a 50 minute flight to San Antonio. Ugh. Hopefully my travel day will be less eventful than it was for Laura and Alyssa. And if you don't read Laura''s travel blog, go there NOW. You may start here. You're welcome (end of plug).

Thanks for reading. 

Cheers,

Mike

Istanbul Day 4

Due to late nights and wi-fi problems, I am now rather far behind. Today's entry will be relatively brief because Saturday was mainly a bridge day. So ... on Saturday I checked out of my posh digs at the Grand Tarabyan, went for one final 2 1/2 hour walk along the Bosphorous, and took a cab to the Old City. The hotel here is pretty nice, it's centrally located, the street upon which it is located is reasonably quiet, and the rooftop restaurant is quite good.

The only thing of note that I did on Saturday was to visit the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. While at the museum, I learned several important things.

1) Given the title of this exhibit, "Head of Alexander the Great," apparently Mr. Great was actually made of stone.

2) This is the bell from the famous Galata Tower, which still stands to this day. Paul Revere's great*35th grandfather was the bell-ringer for the Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI during the 1453 invasion in which the Ottomans conquered the city. The senior Mr. Revere, being years ahead of his time, only spoke English. As such, when he was ringing the bell and screaming "The Ottomans are coming!!" people just assumed he was announcing dinner. Constantinople fell, but the story that was passed down from generation to generation played a large part in America's victory in the Revolutionary War.

3) Here is the only recorded instance of a woman with a joey. The side pouch is particularly weird, but whatever.

4) These are the world's first bobble-heads, originally sold at the Hippodrome. It wasn't until after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople that people realized the heads would bobble better if they were actually attached to a base with a flexible joint.

5) This is a piece of the Babylonian wall, from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. Paige and I saw many more such pieces (indeed, entire sections of the wall) in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The unique thing about this piece is that it represents the first time in history that a building contractor ever said, "What do you mean, 'the paint doesn't match'?"

6) This is my favorite. The picture literally is taken in a lot behind the museum. In Texas, people leave broken washing machines, useless tires, and empty propane tanks lying around on their lots. In Istanbul, they leave relics from the 7th century B.C.

Probably will just have one final entry relating the last two days of events. Might be later today. Might be tomorrow. The good news is that once that one is done, you won't have to read anything else for a while.

Cheers,

Mike