Today came too early, but at least I wasn't woken up by the "Mecca music" (the prayer call as dubbed by my Aunt Melinda. If you've never been to a muslim country, muezzin call the city to prayer 5 times a day, starting at sunrise - ick). After a quick breakfast on the hotel terrace (it was quite a spread!) Mom & I took off for the Blue Mosque. After a minor detour when we got turned around (the streets are twisty-turny and it's hard to get your bearings when you are used to SF), we arrived at the Hippodrome. This is where the chariot arena was located back in the day, and is currently the home of a column, a fountain and the obligatory obelisk. It's amazing how those things show up wherever I go! The Blue Mosque is also along the same plaza, and the outside is absolutely beautiful! We had to take off our shoes and wait in a long line before entering, but it was definitely worth it.
Next it was on to the mosaic museum, a small building behind a small bazaar that was so chock full of amazing things we had to force ourselves to keep walking. Over 250 sq m of mosaics were found while the Blue Mosque was being renovated, and they date back to Byzantine times. Next it was on to the Hagia Sophia, with a quick stop along the way for fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and two lovely scarves to keep us warm. While the weather here is not wet (at the moment), it is definitely much cooler than anticipated.
At the Hagia Sophia we hired an official guide who took us to the front of the long line and gave us a personal tour for 45 minutes. It was very interesting, and while not impressive AT ALL on the outside, the inside was amazing! Originally built as a greek orthodox church between 527-64 AD, the mosaics inside are made of pure gold. After 1,000 years as a Christian place of worship, it was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman war in 1453. The transition to mosque included the covering of Christian mosiscs, which actually ended up protecting them as everyone forgot they were there. It wasn't until Ataturk declared it a museum in 1934 that restoration began. We were fortunate in that there weren't any scaffoldings on the inside of the building, which is apparently extremely rare.
At this point it was getting to be time to eat, so we snagged a spot at a little sidewalk cafe. Now for all of you who were wondering how I would survive with such picky eating habits, let me tell you it was delicious! We had pan fried cheddar cheese appetizer, chicken kebabs with rice, potatoes and vegetables, and the best was penne pasta with vegetables and a pomegranate sauce. OMG, it was so amazing I made my mom take a photo (which BTW we are have trouble uploading from the iPad onto the blog, but we're working on it).
Next we walked to the basilica cistern (place to store water brought in by aqueducts, basically plumbing from back in the day). It has a completely unassuming exterior, but after you walk down a large flight of stairs, you are greeted by a huge underground complex with 336 columns and was built at the same time as the Hagia Sophia. It was basically put together with leftovers from other projects, so nothing really matches. There are also two monster Medusa heads, and no one seems to know where they came from.
Next we decided to hop on a night tour bus, and with a little help from a magic device called the iPhone, we hurried back to our hotel to bundle up before hopping on the bus. While it definetly was not the best nite tour ever (traffic was awful so it took forever, they made us stop for 45 minutes at a cafe, and I didn't get many usable photos) but it definetly gave us a scope of how big the city really is. Istanbul is the largest city in Europe with over 20 million people, and spans two continents(Europe and Asia). Since our bus tickets are good for 24 hours we're heading out tomorrow on another route, which will hopefully turn out better than tonite's, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out!
No comments:
Post a Comment