Istanbul, Turkey

I think all of the adults were really looking forward to visiting Istanbul, Turkey.  We were actually supposed to have two stops in Turkey, but at the last minute, Kusadasi (close to the Unesco World Heritage site of Ephesus, home to 2000 year old Greek ruins) was cancelled and we were all disappointed.  Kusadasi would have been our one stop in Asia, which disappointed the kids, since we are keeping track of countries and continents they have been to.  The famous sites in Istanbul, as well as the cruise terminal, are all in Europe, west of the Bosphorus Strait, which divides Europe from Asia.

We luckily had a long day in Istanbul and were able to hit everything on my list of places I wanted to see.  The kids were troopers because we walked and walked and even Derek did a good job.  We loosely followed and combined many Rick Steves walks.  We started by walking from Galata Port through that part of the city to the Galata Bridge, spanning the Golden Horn.  There weren't many tourists, so we got to see the 'real' culture.  We eventually walked through various bazaars, including the Spice Market and the Grand Bazaar.  

The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest covered bazaars in the world, spanning 61 covered streets and 4000 shops.  Karina asked me why there seemed to be only a few types of shops repeated over and over again, selling only: gold jewelry, rugs, Turkish delight, purses, ceramics, and not much else.  We were wondering that too.  We had mistakenly assured Derek he would be able to find something for a souvenir here since all we knew about it was it was a huge shopping area, but he wasn't interested in any of the small handful of categories of goods they had and quickly became disappointed.  We wandered around letting the kids choose our direction.

I liked seeing all the streets with locals going about their normal days.  It was nice to be in a city that was large enough to have an economy not wholly reliant on a steady stream of cruise ship passengers.  The city was surprisingly clean with few beggars.  There were lots of stray dogs though, to Lydia's delight, but it was a struggle preventing her from feeding them sometimes. 

We were going to take the metro (above-ground railway) to the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, but we ended up just walking the entire 3+ miles because there was a lot to see on the way. The line to enter Hagia Sophia was long, but it moved quickly, and what I thought would be an hour wait was only about 15 minutes.  The Hagia Sophia was originally built as an Orthodox church around 500 AD, and remained a Christian church for 900 years until the Ottomans conquered Constantinople and it was converted into a mosque in the 1400s.  It then remained a mosque for 500 years before becoming a museum for 100 years, and finally in 2020 it was converted back to a mosque again.  In the 1400s a lot of the original Christian theming was removed, but some remained, and the interior was very interesting for that reason. 

My mother and I had to wear head scarves.  Mormor brought a scarf with her.  I didn't, and I just draped a skirt I brought with me over my head.  That seemed to be 'good enough'.  Luckily Karina and Lydia did not need head scarves.  We were also prepared in making sure everyone's knees were covered.  Nate brought his pants with zip-off legs that can convert to shorts so he could cover up in the mosques and then wear shorts the rest of the day.  We saw many men, in addition to women, that had to cover up their legs for dressing immodestly.

The sunlight streaming through the windows made for some cool pictures.

This picture perfectly captures Derek's momentary awe looking up at the huge dome.

One interesting thing about Hagia Sophia is when it was converted to a mosque, the Muslims emphasized symmetry in a desire to reflect their belief in balance, order, and harmony.  In some places if there was a window on one side of the dome but not the other and cutting a hole through the wall to install a new window would have weakened the structure, the designers simply painted a window where it should be to achieve the balance.  Honestly, without the sun shining through, you would have to look hard to notice the difference.  With the sun shining through, once we knew what to look for, we were able to identify several instances of painted windows, alcoves, etc.  Two painted windows are in the dome above us here.

Outside the Hagia Sophia, both close up and from far away:

Very close by was the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque), completed in 1617.  It is one of the most iconic monuments of Ottoman architecture and the interior is decorated with thousands of blue Iznik tiles.  (stock photo)

Here is Lydia in the ablution area where worshipers would wash themselves before entering:

The Blue Mosque was beautiful and grand.  After visiting multiple large mosques this summer, I know there are never any paintings inside or images of people.  The tile work is intricate, as well as the architecture.  It was also notable how much more light and bright it was compared to Hagia Sophia.  Being so much newer, the engineering had advanced enough that the builders were able to hold the huge dome on fewer more massive pillars which allowed space for more than 260 stained glass windows to make it so much brighter.

Next we toured the Basilica Cistern, the largest ancient cistern beneath Istanbul. It was constructed in 476 AD and most of the tall marble columns were unique, one of a kinds, pillaged from other places and somehow brought to Constantinople.  Throughout our vacation, I noticed that many of the impressive marble pieces had started out as one thing, e.g. Egyptian, before being looted by the Greeks, then Romans, and then Christians and repurposed all along the way.  The cistern would have been full of water 1500 years ago.  They keep just a little water in it now to create reflections for tourists to see as they walk on raised platforms.  The cistern was a huge highlight for me, I just wish I had purchased tickets online because the line to get in was very long.  In my defense though, tickets only become available online one week in advance, and we were already on the ship.

 

 

They cycle through different colors of lighting in the cistern adding extra ambiance.

There were several sculptures in the cistern.  This one is reminiscent of Medusa with snake shapes on the head and the shadow making it even spookier.

 

 

The bases of two columns actually feature Medusa's head upside down.  There is debate as to whether the heads are upside down to negate her powers or if they just happened to be placed that way since the statues wouldn't have been seen by people and most of the marble in the cistern is 'scrap' stolen from other places. 

Next, we bought some Turkish delight and strolled to Topkapi Palace where sultans of the Ottoman Empire resided from 1478-1853.  We didn't go inside, but enjoyed the gardens and grounds. 

As another experience we took the metro most of the way back to the cruise terminal and our ship.  We were walking masters that day, and I wish I had had a step counter because I am pretty sure we would have had something to brag about. From the ship, we had views of Istanbul on both sides of the Bosphorus Strait.  Here's the Europe side.

The Nusretiye Mosque was right off our ship - we didn't go inside, but it was fun to look down on it from our ship deck.

The tall tower in the background is the Camlica Tower, the tallest tower in Istanbul, where they have communications antennas as well as an observation deck, restaurants, etc.  We didn't go there as it was too far out of our way, but it is on the Asian side of Istanbul, so we at least saw Asia on the trip while we were docked in port and looking around.

This was a very unique cruise stop, and I loved that we also got a flavor of the real culture.