Istanbul Turkey, Russia: Aug. 26 - 28

Istanbul Saturday August 27, 2005

After a great night’s sleep, we were up and out the door of our hotel with our guide Bulent Aslan. We contracted him for two days from Insight Travel. Bulent spoke excellent English and has been a licensed guide for over 11 years. Unquestionably Turkey has been the highlight of our trip so far and Bulent has been a big part of it. He brought the city to life for us and was an excellent interpreter and guide. So with Bulent to lead us, we headed off on our walking tour of Istanbul.

After leaving the door of the hotel we turned down a rather innocuous looking side street and not less than 90 seconds later we emerged into the Hippodrome. It was the old Roman Chariot race track that we had taken some 45 minutes to reach the day before. The kids groaned when they realized what had happened and years of accumulated awe in Brian’s navigational prowess vanished in an instant. We crossed into the center of the Hippodrome which was an elongated oval plaza that the chariots would race around, and we stopped at the base of a twisted and broken bronze statue sunk deep into the ground. This was one of the oldest relics in the city brought here in AD330 from the temple of Apollo in Delphi where it stood from 478 BC. It was a victory statue celebrating the Hellenic confederation over the Persians, consisting of 3 intertwined snakes that had made it through earthquakes and wars. It was very tall and missing its top of 3 snake heads. It was revealed to us that late in the 19 th century the ambassador of Poland who was a rather robust fellow, got a little drunk one night and took to swinging on the snake heads. Ooops. What nature and time couldn’t take down in 3,000 years succumbed to a drunken Pole.

We then stopped at the base of the tacky obelisk that we had seen the day before. Turns out it wasn’t so tacky after all. The Obelisk of Theodosius was pillaged by the Romans from Egypt approximately 1800 years ago and pre-dated allmost everything else in the city. Its granite structure kept it incredibly well preserved as it was carved in Egypt around 1500BC. So much for tacky and we learned it was best to stop making any assumptions about what we saw.

Next up was the famous Blue Mosque which was just across the road. Fighting our way through the touts and the numerous merchants we got into the grounds. The mosque itself was commissioned by Sultan Ahmet in 1609 and was made from the rubble of the Hippodrome viewing stands. It was called the Blue Mosque because of the famous blue tiles lining the interior of its 16 domes (16 because Ahmet was the 16 th Sultan of the empire) and because the tourists couldn’t say the Turkish name of Sultanahmet. It was huge and breathtaking. After removing our shoes, we wandered in and parked ourselves under the main dome and got a great lesson on its history and some background on the Muslim religion. Brennan was also floored when he found out that the Mosque was filmed and photographed by George Lucas and served as the palace on Naboo in the 2 nd Star Wars film.

The Mosque is an active one and is surrounded by 6 minarets. This number was thought to be rather presumptuous at the time since the only other one with 6 was the famous mosque in Mecca. Faced with a peasant uprising the Sultan explained that his instructions were that he only wanted 1 minaret made of gold rather than 6 and that the instructions were lost in translation to the architect. To fix the problem he sent an army of engineers to Mecca and had them add a 7 th and minaret to the mosque there. Not too shabby thinking for a guy who became Sultan at the age of 14 and died at the age of only 28.

Leaving the Blue Mosque behind us we crossed the plaza again and entered the Ayasofya. This Mosque / Church has been argued to be the 8 th wonder of the ancient world and we saw why. It was huge and covered with tiles and frescoes. Originally built by Roman Emperor Justinian as an early Christian church in the 6th century, it was designed to inspire and awe pagan believers into converting to Christianity. It was converted into a Mosque by the Ottomans in 1453. Later in 1935, Turkish leader Ataturk made it into a museum and now it honors both religions. The place couldn’t be done justice with film or video and just had to be seen to be believed.

The day was warming up nicely (as in getting freaking hot) and we had to stop to re-hydrate. A couple of dollars and several soft drinks later we were at it again. Next stop was the Topkapi palace, the sultan’s palace located behind the Ayasofya. The first palace was built by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453 shortly after the conquest of Constantinople. The name comes from the big cannonballs found at the gate. Currently it is an open air museum and we spent a good 2 hours touring the grounds and buildings. We checked out the crown jewels, including some of the biggest emeralds in the world and one huge diamond that was found in a garbage dump by a peasant. The story goes that the peasant thought he had found an interesting stone, not realizing its true value. He traded it to a merchant for a pittance only to be informed later that he had been swindled. A dispute arose and the matter was taken to the sultan for resolution. The fact that it is now in the treasury suggests that the Sultan found the ultimate way to resolve the problem.

Inside the palace we also visited the harem and saw how the ladies grew up and lived. Their building was the most beautiful in the palace, decorated with incredible tiles from Iznik, a region in Turkey. “Once in, never out except for retirement”, was the rule for the women of the harem. They weren’t allowed to leave the building once they entered into service unless the Sultan died or they were too old and had to retire. All in all over 3-400 ladies were in the harem at any one time. Brennan just walked around with a perpetual smile on his face the whole time. The smile didn’t last long as soon after we left the harem we entered a beautiful blue tiled room that looked calming and relaxing as it was surrounded by fountains and gardens. Turns out this is the famous circumcision room for the Sultan’s sons. Basically it was a big party when the kids were 6 or so and they were taken to a room where instead of more presents there was a guy with a big knife. The fountains were to drown out the screams. We learned from Bulent that boys in Turkey today are still circumcised at around 6 years of age and it is a big celebration. On the special day the boys are treated like a sultan for the day. They wear sultan costumes and are totally spoiled with chocolates, money etc. So whenever we saw a young boy dressed like this, we smiled because we knew what was coming for him.

The palace is also famous for its ancient religious artifacts. On display were footprints of the prophet Mohammed, along with his sword and bow. The skull and hand of John the Baptist are also on display under great security.

By this time we were pretty tired and we stopped for a quick lunch at a nearby hippy hangout. Capitalism has taken over because the lunch was not as cheap as we had thought it might be. Lunch must have made Brian dozy because the next thing he knew Debbie and the guide were steering him into a carpet shop where the pain of the trip really set in. Debbie has had her sights set on Turkish carpets forever and was determined not to leave Istanbul without a couple. Having seen 30 or so carpets and making no bones about the ones she likes it’s not hard to imagine Brian sitting on one side of the table negotiating against the dealer playing lets make a deal and Debbie saying 4 carpets not two and “I really want that one”. Brennan was also very helpful blurting out his observations on how great the deal was and offer him this or that exorbitant amount of cash. Sierra sat quietly drinking her “free” pop. There can be no strategy involved in this kind of negotiation. We had been told by several parties that the room to negotiate hovered around 20%. Brian was sitting at 30% and several thousand dollars and 3 carpets and one silk wall hanging later we managed to escape back into the street. What we are going to do with 3 carpets is totally beyond me. At this rate it will have to be the kids’ inheritance.

After the debacle in the carpet shop with Debbie and Brennan still complimenting Brian on a masterful negotiating job (and Brian suspecting it really wasn’t but was probably the best he could do under the circumstances) we headed out to one of the city’s oldest cisterns, the Theodosius Cistern. It was built by the Romans along with around 15 others to store water for the city in times of war. It was kind of creepy as we were down deep and were all alone. We actually entered through an innocuous door off the street and had to turn on the lights ourselves. We would never have known it was there without Bulent.

Next up was the Grand Bazaar. Over 3,000 shops were crammed into this bazaar. It was hot and noisy and wonderful with lots of “pssst…. Hey mister, Wanna buy a watch/leather jacket/gold?” It was very interesting and we’re not sure if we were still suffering buyer’s shock on the carpets but the general impression was that while both were great, the Spice Market of the day before was the more entertaining and exotic.

At this point it was one more mosque to go, which was thankfully less than a block from the hotel. This was a much smaller one and much more intimate. Like the others we had seen it was beautiful. Unlike the others it was very quiet and peaceful. After 9 hours and 23 km we said goodbye to Bulent for the evening. Brian headed out to buy water and drinks. Debbie and the kids headed up to the room. After a quick cool down and some laundry it was out to the internet café across the street to do some banking and check on emails. Nobody was overly hungry so Deb and Brian settled for drinks on the rooftop terrace while the kids played their gameboys, (newly recharged). Then it was off to bed, knowing the next day was more car, and boat oriented than walking.( NEXT PAGE )