Day 6 - Istanbul, Turkey

Our next stop was Istanbul, Turkey. For me, it truly was like a homecoming, 20 years after I lived there as an exchange student. Many of you probably know that I still consider the year I spent in Turkey to be the best year of my life. Lessons learned, experiences had and memories made... so many to mention (although if I ever finish that book I started....). Anyway, the day we spent in Istanbul was a reminder of why I fell in love with the city and its people so many years ago. I will try to keep the comments on Istanbul brief as I am know I could write for hours about it!

Thanks to my parents we had a private tour of the city. That type of tour is truly the best as you get to see what you want and create as much of a personal experience as possible in one single day.

The first stop was a mosque off the main list of tourist sites that really gave a good perspective of the Islam religion and its followers. The road to the mosque was probably a little scarey for the rest of my family as it was through winding, bending side streets with some not so nice buildings along the way. But once there, I think we all appreciated this as the first stop of the tour as the guide was able to give a true picture of every day Islamic faith (which is not as visible at such sights as the Blue Mosque, which we visited next}. One of the most amusing moments was when we entered the mosque - even though the 'doorman' had given my sister-in-law, mom and me scarves to cover our shoulders, legs & heads, there was a more devout believer in the Mosque who voiced his concerns when we entered the building and started to walk towards the front. In a traditional mosque, women pray in a section separate than the men. This man obviously did not approve of 3 American women in the mosque although amusingly, he kept flashing glances in our way as if perhaps he could not look any other way... We were all amused by his contradiction in belief vs action!

Next we went to the main tourist area with the sites that most people associate with Istanbul. First was the Hippodrome which was a public area decorated with works from areas across the Byzantine empire, built around 200 AD. As with other structures this old, only parts of the original works remain but you can get an idea of the size of the area and what it might have looked like when all was still in place.

On to the Blue Mosque, the national mosque of Turkey. It was built in the early 1600's and was given its name because of the more than 20,000 hand-made blue tiles that decorate its in interior. The Blue Mosque is across a square from the Hagia Sophia and was built as a rival to it. Even at that time in history the idea of 'mine mosque is bigger than yours' was very much alive! Egos of rulers never seem to change...

The Hagia Sophia was originally built in the early 500's AD as a church and for almost 1000 years it was the largest cathedral in the world. Then when Istanbul was conquered by the Ottomans, it was converted to a mosque. The Hagia Sophia is now a museum, unlike the Blue Mosque that is still actively used on a daily basis as a place for prayer.

From the Hagia Sophia, we visited one of the neatest things in my opinion, the underground cistern. Built in 532 AD its original use was to provide water to Topkapi Palace in the city. The water is collected rain water and fresh water still feeds the reservoir. For many years the cistern was forgotten and could not be visited as we did. In fact, it was about a year or 2 before I went to Istanbul 20 years ago that the cistern was opened for public walkthroughs. You will see fish swimming which is a simple intentional method of testing the cleanliness of the water. Also interesting to see are the 2 medusa heads used in the construction of the pillars.

From there we went to lunch. Oh yum, real Turkish food. Fresh and absolutely delicious. Our guide took us to a restaurant where there were not tourists! If everyone in my family is telling the truth, the lunch we had there was the best food we had on the trip! Then we went to a carpet demonstration which is a must for all tourists. While it was tempting, I resisted the desire for an absolutely gorgeous, handmade Turkish rug. Of course the one I wanted was $6000... my bank account appreciates that I did not buy a rug... The photo from the rug demonstration is priceless. My neice being 3 found it quite amusing to roll around and cover up in the thousands of dollars of rugs. She won the room with this behavior hands down.

Next to last was the Grand or Covered bazaar which is one of the oldest in the world. This is the place where if you bargain. You absolutely never pay what they ask and play the game until you think you get to a fair price. I used to be really good at this little game but with so much of my Turkish language skills gone, I felt a little less successful than I probably was in the past. Regardless, I did get to negotiate on a couple of things. There are over 1000 shops in the bazaar and I think 400,000 visitors per day is the current estimate. It is big.... and one can easily get lost there!

We all thought that the was the last stop but we were wrong. Our guide and driver decided that since we had 2 firemen in our group that we had to stop at a firehouse. It was interesting to see how the trucks were different, how the firemen seemed to have things setup to spend alot of time outside and how once they realized what our motivation for the visit, they didn't want us to leave! If we had had the time, we likely would have stayed for tea.

Unfortunately then we had to go back to the ship. The day in Istanbul was over and I can only hope my family got a glimpse of why I love Istanbul.