Incredible Istanbul
Istanbul, a universal beauty where poet and archeologist, diplomat and merchant, princess and sailor, northerner and westerner screams with same admiration. - Edmondo De Amicis
Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople is the largest city in Turkey and the country's economic, cultural and historic center. The city straddles the Bosporus strait, and lies in both Europe and Asia.
The Roman emperor Constantine originally established Constantinople as a Christian city after converting to Christianity when he saw a blazing cross as he led his armies to battle. The church at Hagia Sophia is credited to him. Subsequently the Ottoman empire came into control and Constantinople now Istanbul has been under the Ottomans or Islamic control since then.
As a school girl I romanticized stories about the Sultans and harems and the life of excess that was lived in these beautiful palaces and gardens. Of course there was the serpent in Eden that had young women who displeased the Sultan and were tied up in a bag and dropped off the Golden Horn.
Turkey is a trip that we did as a family with a young guide who enjoyed bantering with us as much as he enjoyed taking my boys to enjoy the Turkish baths or getting a taste for the night life.
The Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque are all right next to each other.
We stayed in the old city, walking distance from all these sites. For some reason the guides like to walk to the far end and start with the Blue Mosque and then work backwards through the Hagia Sophia and end at the palace.
When our guide started walking past the Hagia Sophia I asked him why we didn’t see it. He tried to tell me that its not the way they do things. Well of course I had to dig my heels in and say that’s how we’re going to do things. We’re not walking back and forth since we’d rather conserve our energies to seeing and doing.
The silver lining for us is that since we started against the crowd we also avoided them having more space to explore each place fully.
Interior Hagia Sophia
Interior Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia’s complex history began in 537 when it was originally built by Greek architects as the world’s largest church with it’s huge dome. It remained in Byzantine hands for centuries apart from a brief moment when crusaders raided the city. In 1453 it was captured by the Ottomans who converted it into a mosque covering up the Christian icons and gold mosaics with panels of Arabic religious calligraphy.
For a brief stint it was converted into a museum before being converted again into a mosque. Today, It is a unique monument in that it amalgamates the symbols of both Christianity and Sunni Islam and one of Turkey’s most popular tourist destinations, attracting over three million visitors a year.
Wish Column Hagia Sophia
The story has it that if you make a wish, stick your thumb and rotate it within the hole and it gets wet the wish will become true. Of course we had to try it. I absolutely don’t remember at this point what I wished, if my thumb got wet or if my wish came true. There’s fun in the trying.
Blue Mosque is a practicing mosque. Hand-painted blue tiles adorn the mosque’s interior walls, and at night the mosque is bathed in blue as lights frame the mosque’s five main domes, six minarets and eight secondary domes. It sits next to the Hagia Sophia, the principal mosque of Istanbul until the Blue Mosque's construction and another popular tourist site.
The Golden Horn
The Golden Horn is the primary inlet of the Bosporus. As a natural estuary that connects with the Bosporus Strait at the point where the strait meets the Sea of Marmara. This estuarial inlet geographically separates the historic center of Istanbul from the rest of the city, and forms a horn-shaped, sheltered harbor. Throughout its history, the Golden Horn has witnessed many tumultuous historical incidents, and has been depicted in numerous works of art. I always imagined some sort of point from which the weighted sacks containing disobedient slaves and concubines were pitched. For all my reading I did not realize that this bridge spanning the water and the water itself were the fabled golden horn. Sorry folks! no gold in sight.
Grand Bazaar
I grew up in Kolkata, India which is home to the New Market similar in concept and execution to the Grand Bazaar. The fun is really in wandering and browsing through these shops and looking for bargains. I don’t know if we truly found bargains but we did find enough memorabilia to load our luggage as we left Istanbul.
Note to self: The next time I go to Kolkata to visit family I’m going to take pictures of the New Market (it’s still called that even though it was first established in 1874) and put them side by side with pictures from the Grand Bazaar to compare.
A trip to Turkey is definitely not complete without shopping for rugs. After a day spent sightseeing it’s an opportunity to relax and rest your feet as you can see I’m definitely done with shoes; all the better to test the rugs. Cups of Turkish tea, walking barefoot on beautiful rugs were enough to refresh and revitalize and get us ready for our evening entertainment.
I love rugs but I absolutely could not accommodate another one in my house so I tried to convince my son to buy one as he had just bought a condo. Fortunately he did not buy one because these do not appeal to our children who are modern and it would have ultimately been disposed off or stored in his garage like the beautiful Indian rug that I gifted him with. Most fortunate my friend bought two and I can get to enjoy them when I visit her.
Dancing Dervishes
I always like to feature a cultural evening as a part of our itinerary since it gives us such a great feel for the local color. We were told that the dancing dervishes were the right cultural event for us to attend in Istanbul. I don’t want to be dis-respectful because I know many people enjoy this performance but after a long day, with the lights off, in a cool spot, I dozed off and caught up on my zzzz’s even as my two friends who were with me continued to poke me in the side since I guess I was disturbing fellow patrons attending the performance.
Bosporus Cruise
We did enjoy some incredible Kebabs. My friends were too chicken so the girls did not do the Turkish bath but my sons and their friend did experience it even though they said it was a bit weird. We also sailed down the Bosporus on a ferry boat and went all the way to the black sea. While we took the opportunity to venture out of Istanbul to go to Ephesus we did not make it to Cappadocia and Çanakkale. Perhaps I will have another opportunity to set my feet on Troy and relive all the stories from that period.