Turkey – Istanbul with Rose

There is so much to see and do in Istanbul.  For me one of the big draws of Turkey is the Byzantine history which I did a course on in university.  Unfortunately in the almost 600 years since the final Ottoman conquest in 1453 much of the Byzantine monuments have either been removed or repurposed (e.g. churches turned into mosques).

We have spent the past few days in Istanbul seeing the primary sights of interest.  On the first day of our tour we did an orientation walking tour that took us by, but not into, many of the significant points of interest.  So the past few days has been about visiting those places.

Before we could hit the sights though my first stop was to get my phone fixed.  About half way through the tour while we were in Kas I dropped my phone and unfortunately it proved to finally be the fatal drop that broke the screen.

I initially tried to have it repaired at a a store aptly named the “Phone Hospital” but unfortunately it could not be repaired and the entire screen assembly needed to be replaced.  As he quoted an exorbitant price to do this manoeuvre the temporary “fix” was to put in a cracked used screen that still sort of worked (though everything appeared faded and in negative).

 

This was driving me crazy, so on returning to Istanbul I got a new screen at the lovely cell phone store around the corner from the hotel where they originally set me up with cell phone connectivity for Turkey.  It has now been beautifully resurrected and my missing limb has been returned to me.  However it is now a bit less useful.  In Turkey you have to register SIM cards with the government after two weeks at a cost of $75.  At that price I”m trying to survive my last week with no cell coverage (unfortunately this means no Google Maps as I navigate around Istanbul).

First stop on our sight seeing tour was Hagia Sofia which was the primary cathedral built by Justinian in the 6th century.  During Ottoman rule from 1453 to 1922 it was a mosque and now since declaration of the republic it is a museum.  The building reflects this mixed heritage in interesting ways.

We walked across the street to an inconspicuous building which is the entrance to the Basilica cisterns.  The cisterns were only opened to the public in the 1980s following restoration.  There are hundreds of cisterns under old Istanbul built by the Byzantines to store water from the forest 19 km north of the city. This is the largest and is really fun to visit.  Adding to the dark atmosphere is very spiritual music.  I kept feeling like I was at a spa.

As prayer time had finished by the time we finished our visit to the cistern we were able to walk across the park that separates Hagia Sofia from the Blue Mosque.  The Blue Mosque is so named for the blue tiles that cover the inside. The mosque was built at the start of the 17th century.

Following our day of sight seeing we met the remaining members of our group who were still in Istanbul.   The Galata Bridge is one of three bridges that connects the old part of Istanbul to the new part on the other side of the primary harbour (called the Golden Horn).  Underneath the Galata Bridge, where it is too shallow for boats to pass they have constructed many restaurants.  This is supposedly the best place to go for fresh fish in Istanbul.   Though it was good, it was very touristy and over priced for what we got.  It was fun though to say good bye (again) to almost everyone.

 

On Friday we spent most of the day taking our time exploring the Topkapi Palace.  This massive complex was the hub of the Ottoman Empire administration and residence of the Sultan up to the mid-19th century.

We were trying to take things at a slow pace to recover from the tour and also to get / stay healthy as Rose was fighting quite the cold and I’m just finishing off my cough.  So we called it quits for the day and retreated to our hotel room for the evening.

Yesterday we had another easy day by taking the hop-on-hop-off bus around both old and new Istanbul.  We even crossed over to the Asian side, so I guess I can officially now say that I have been to another continent!  We did get off at Taksim Square to explore a bit.   The area originally under dispute (the trees) is now clear and the area was filled with families and young people out enjoying the weekend sun doing some shopping.