Days 336-343: Istanbul to Troy
Istanbul, Çanakkale, Troy
After a great but way-too-short visit home, we headed back on the road to Turkey. Our first stop was the fantastic city of Istanbul: where East meets West in a fantastic blend of cultures.
Istanbul was a bit of a shock. The place is remarkably European, both in its cosmopolitan atmosphere and expense. The hills are filled with stunning mosques and the streets are lined with chichi boutique shops. Spilling out onto the sidewalks are innumerable cafes serving tiny glasses of tea (çay) and filled with old men playing backgammon or smoking a nargile. Much to Marcus’ chagrin, the national drink is not actually Turkish coffee.
Sipping Turkish tea in a cafe surrounded by tombs while deciphering Plato with the locals.
Istanbul has an interesting mix of religions and quite a few buildings have been converted back-and-forth between Christian churches and Islamic mosques. The Aya Sofya is an enormous Byzantine-era church completed in 537AD and was converted to a mosque after the conquest in 1453.
The enormous church-cum-mosque-cum-museum of Aya Sofya.
The inside of the Aya Sofya is filled with incredibly detailed Christian mosaics and enormous Islamic script medalions. It was nice to see both of the religions preserved rather than decimated to accommodate the new occupants.
The first week of our visit had remarkably crappy weather. At least the umbrella vendors were enjoying it.
To escape the inclement weather, we headed underground to the Basilica Cistern. As you can tell from the picture, we didn’t manage to escape falling water.
The cistern is an enormous chamber filled with Doric and Corinthian columns. It even had a good foot of water in the cistern with loads of fish.
The columns were taken from other buildings during construction. So there was quite a broad variety. We liked the Medusa headed columns, or at least until Marcus turned to stone.
Our hotel was a stone’s throw from the stunning Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Camii), with its grey roof and slender minarets. We couldn’t help but take pictures of it every time we walked by, it was that beautiful. We read that the achitect of the Blue Mosque was trying to make the outside as ornate was the Aya Sofya was inside. He didn’t stop there because the inside was equally pretty – it is the blue inside of the mosque for which it is nicknamed.
The Blue Mosque with a storm brewing.
The Blue Mosque is just as gorgeous at night.
Inside the Suleymaniye Mosque, considered to be one of mosque architect Minar Sinan’s finest.
Everything about the Topkapi Palace was ornate. Even the beautiful blue tiling on the “circumcision chamber” must have given the recipient something to take his mind off the matter at hand.
On one side of the palace there was a room containing the creepy jewel-encrusted arm and skull cap of St. John the Baptist. And the other side had a room devoted to relics from the Prophet Mohammed, including hairs from his beard, a tooth, and weapons. There was an Imam sitting in the room singing verses from the Qur’an, which gave the room a neat feel.
An interesting fountain brought by Kaiser Wilhelm in 1901 as a gift.
Just turning around Istanbul to take in all the magnificent sights is enough to make you feel like a whirling dervish. Well, at least until you see how it is really done by the devotees of Mevlana – the actual Whirling Dervishes. The spinning is part of a somewhat solemn religious ceremony. The ceremony was held in, of all places, the Sirkeci railway station. This used to be the end of the line for the Orient Express. We liked the tall felt hats worn by the dancers and the musicians, which seemed to vary in size by stature. The spinning seemed to go on for a long time and we couldn’t figure out how they weren’t falling over from dizziness.
Dervishes whirling their way to ecstasy.
The bazaars of Istanbul were a shopper’s paradise (unless you express interest in buying a carpet). Too bad it was our first stop on the trip and we didn’t want to drag a water pipe around the country.
The aromatic spice bazaar had all sorts of candy and seasonings. Marcus, being sensitive to the increasing number of grey hairs on his head, got tired of the offers for “Turkish Viagra”.
There’s a disturbing tendancy of virtually all public toilets to charge half a lira. That’s almost $0.40 to use a toilet! This happens inside of sights after you’ve paid admission. The worst we saw was on a ferry where you’ve simply got no choice. What’s even more intimidating are the WCs that have old signs up from before the lira was revalued and charge 500,000 lira per use. Marcus has used his “skills” developed in India to save money whenever trees presented a more economical alternative.
The buses in Turkey are simply stunning. They are huge, clean, fast, efficient, punctual, comfortable, affordable, serve food and drink, stop for toilets, smoke-free (mostly), show movies, assign seats, and ban cell phones. They even go through the bus and distribute scented hand cleaner every few hours. Our first Turkish bus ride took us to Çanakkale near the Galipoli peninsula and the ancient city of Troy.
The site of the Trojan War in Homer’s Illiad is on a low hill that used to be near the sea. There were about nine cities on the site, and acheologists think that layers VI to VII are Homeric Troy. The city was actually pretty small to have held out for 10 years against the Greeks. Unfortunately, the many layers of cities made the ruins difficult to follow. But really people go here for its historical value and as an homage to Homer.
They built an artist’s rendition of a Trojan horse for the kids. We suspect the real version wouldn’t have had windows.
One of the better section of wall from Troy VI.
We left Çanakkale on the 18th of March, which was Turkish Victory Day, and busloads of Turks were pouring in to head for Galipoli. It may have been rainy, but the Turkish flags were everywhere and flying high.
Tags: Turkey
Kelly & Marcus
March 30th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Love the Blue Mosque – awesome! The SS classes will enjoy seeing pics of the “Modern” Asia Minor.
Travel safely xoxox
March 30th, 2006 at 7:10 am
Wasn’t there a better shot of the Trojan horse? 😉
April 1st, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Skills developed in India? I’ll have to remember thiat next time I see some street person exercising his constitional rights on the streets of San Francisco.
April 2nd, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Hi Kelly & Marcus, How are you doing? I like your pictures. I sold 210 Girl Scout cookies. We’re going to go to my cousin’s wedding in Idaho in July. Hope you are having fun. Love, Kyla