It's Time to Talk Turkey

 Ah! Istanbul

After disembarking our cruise we grabbed an Uber and headed for the airport to begin the next leg of our trip.  Someone on the boat had gifted us with what might have been Covid but who knows anymore.  Suffice it to say that it was raining, we were moderately miserable and the plane was late.  The joys of travel.  We hit the hotel, skipped the welcome dinner and passed out.

The next day, still feeling icky, we dragged ourselves out to see the sights of Istanbul.  We had spent a week in Istanbul a dozen years ago, so our diminished capacity wasn't that crucial. It was still the same beautiful, somewhat mysterious city but some things had changed.  While the people were still friendly and helpful they did not seen as happy as in prior times.  Having an authoritarian leader and severe inflation can do that to you.  We also noticed that more women were dressed in the traditional, covered manner compared to a decade ago.  This was particularly true in the eastern part of the country.

So it was a blitz of sights in a single (long) day. First up was the Blue Mosque. Upon entering you must remove your shoes and women must cover their heads. In our experience every tour has one -- the person who doesn't pay attention, defies norms and is then annoyed with the guide.  And thus, our Iranian nemesis ignored our guides offers to stop and buy scarves and then registered outrage that she hadn't gotten one.  A classic guide/tourist fight broke out and we all stood back amused.  Much like any teacher, a guide must establish who is boss from the outset in a firm, yet seemingly polite manner.  The back and forth was protracted but, in the end, the revolt was quashed.

The Blue Mosque, officially Sultan Ahmed Mosque was built between 1609 - 1617 during the rule of Ahmed I. It is the most iconic and popular monument of Ottoman architecture.

The interior domes are very impressive...

and seem to almost overlap one another and overwhelm the viewer.

As in all Islamic structures there are no images, but an amazing amount of intricate tile work and other decorative features.

Then we moved on to the Hippodrome.  That's pretty much a yawn but walking there was fun.  Istanbul has a unique way of dealing with street dogs and cats.  They have so many they can't have shelters for all of them so they just let them hang out. BUT they take care of them.  They have roving vans that tag them, vaccinate them and give them checkups.  All the neighbors and stores put out food and water for them.  And they look really healthy and are very, very chill.  You can walk right over to them as they sleep sprawled on the sidewalk.  Erdoğan wanted to catch them all and the public went mad!  That ended that.

One of the many laid back dogs we encountered in Istanbul. Many of the dogs were, like this one, quite big.

This obelisk was brought from Egypt (you can see the hieroglyphic script) by the Romans and placed in the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome, now a square, was originally a chariot racing arena and the cultural center of Byzantine Rome and later the Ottoman Empire.

From there it was the Hagia Sophia.  A beautiful edifice, it was originally constructed as a church.  As was often the case when Islam became the dominant religion the building was converted to a mosque with all art of human forms eliminated and replaced with calligraphy.  

An exterior view of the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, which was first erected as a Church. Upon its completion in AD 537, it was the world's largest interior space and the first to employ a fully pendentive dome.

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, it was converted to a mosque and used for this purpose until 1931, when it was no longer a mosque. In 1935 it became a museum by order of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first President of Turkey and a secularist, until 2020 when it was once more converted to a mosque by Recep Tayip Erdoğan, the current Turkish President. 

The intricate Arabic calligraphy was added to the dome after it was converted to a mosque.

This hexapterygon (six winged angel) was the only one whose face was preserved. Due to the prohibition in Islam against graven images, all of the other ones faces were obliterated.

In this photo you can see the hexapterygon, the mihrab (the niche which points towards Mecca) and the minbar (the raised platform from which the imam addresses the congregation) to the right of the mihrab.

There were several mosaics and frescoes which are in amazingly good shape considering their age. Perhaps the covering of these by the Ottomans with plaster when the church was converted to a mosque helped to preserve them.

The Ottoman Empire was vast and exerted its power from the 1400s to 1922.  It was most powerful in the15th-16th centuries. Topkapi Palace displays the wealth and opulence of the Ottoman rulers.  When we visited Topkapi on our first trip it was magical.  It was February and a snow storm had dumped a half foot of snow on the city.  We got to Topkapi very early and the entire grounds were blanketed in pristine snow where not one shoe had tread.  Not so this time.  We were visiting on what used to be the shoulder season.  The crowds were crushing.  Not just at Topkapi or Istanbul but everywhere we went in Turkey.  While still very impressive, we left thinking how much more enjoyable our first visit had been.

The ornateness of Topkapi Palace was a testament to the wealth of the Ottoman Empire at its peak.

The Fahti Pavillion contains treasures from the Ottoman Empire such as these gems...

and the Spoonmarker's diamond.

This throne was used by the Ottoman rulers.

This is just one example of the intricate stained glass windows in the pavillion.

Even the underside of the buildings was ornate.

From an overlook at Topkapi Palace, I shot this photo of the Bosphorus Bridge, which links Europe on one side to Asia on the other side.

The last stop of the day was the Grand Bazaar which is a truly overwhelming experience of bustling shoppers, aggressive shopkeepers and and incessant offers of apple tea.  By this point Michael and I felt truly rotten.  We begged off the bazaar and our guide Erdal took pity on us and pointed us to his favorite coffee shop on a quite lane away from the bazaar. On our previous trip we had spent a fair amount of time in the Grand |Bazaar as well as the Spice Market (amazing) so we didn't feel we'd missed anything.

Having already toured the Grand Bazaar, we decided not to fight the crowds.

We headed back to the hotel,  fell into bed and willed ourselves to feel more human in the morning.