The first main event of our trip was going to the Aya Sofya. It was built as a church by Emperor Justinian, converted to a mosque after the Islamic conquest, and converted to a museum by order of Kemal Ataturk with the rise of the Turkish Republic. It was absolutely spectacular. Unfortunately many of the mosaics were plastered over while it was a mosque. Many have been recovered, but in other places paintings were done to mimic the mosaics. It was amazing just to imagine the splendor of the entire church in mosaics. One highlight according to the guidebook was the weeping column. Apparently it’s dedicated to some Christian saint, and those who stick their fingers in a hole of a plaque and remove them wet will have all their ailments healed. We saw a bunch of other people doing it, so we decided we had to as well.
After the Aya Sofya we headed across a promenade to the Blue Mosque. As we were entering we were told to hurry because it would be closing soon for the Friday noon prayer. The mosque was absolutely magnificent, but in a different way from the Aya Sofya. We had to take our shoes off of course, and were given plastic bags to carry them in.
After leaving we tried some of the traditional bread sold by street vendors. Street vendors are a pretty big thing in Istanbul, and many of their carts are bought through the city municipality. Chestnuts, corn, and bread were the main things to buy.
We then headed over to Topkapi Palace. It was used as the palace of the Ottoman Emperors through the mid-1850s. It wasn’t so exciting, to be quite honest. It was a very Turkish style building, with lots of little rooms and huge open courtyards. By this point we were also getting a little worn out and tired. But then we came across an exhibit called the Sacred Trust. The exhibit wasn’t advertised anywhere, not in the guidebook and not at the ticket booth. It was, however, the coolest part of the trip. Because the Ottoman Empire was in control of such a large part of the Islamic world, they amassed a large amount of Islamic treasures. We were able to see locks used on the Ka’ba in Mecca and one of the curtains which covered the Ka’ba. We also saw the sword of Muhammad and the first four Islamic caliphs. We were able to see a whole bunch of relics, including hairs from the beard of Muhammad, Muhammad’s tooth, the skull and arm bone of St. John the Baptist. Then there was also the cup of Abraham, the turban of Joseph, and a cast of Muhammad’s footprint from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It was pretty cool.
After the palace we headed over to a cafe near the Blue Mosque for lunch. Lunch wasn’t that exciting…but it was very cheap. We were able to hear the call to prayer from the Blue Mosque. (Though we can usually hear it when we’re in Jerusalem, it was just really cool to hear it from right next to the mosque.) We then headed over to the hippodrome. Of course we were standing in the place where we thought it was supposed to be, and all we saw were these 2 stone columns. Then I overheard a tour guide saying in English that the hippodrome had been destroyed. It’s really good we heard that because we probably would have kept looking for a while. The columns we saw were apparently what the horses raced around in the hippodrome. There was also a lot of pretty landscaping here, so we had fun.
Afterwards we walked to the grand bazaar. It was absolutely huge. There were just so many shops everywhere, and everything was really cheap. I couldn’t help myself and went a little crazy with the shopping. But where else am I going to find gorgeous silk pashminas for $7.50? After we’d had our fill of shopping we made our way to the Sulimaniye Mosque. On the way we saw the entrance to Istanbul University. It was much more magnificent than any university entrance I’ve seen in the US. On the grounds of the mosque is a building with tombs of important people. One of them was Suleyman the Magnificent (he rebuilt the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem at one point). The mosque itself wasn’t that exciting, and was rather plain after everything else we’d seen that morning.
Next we headed over to the spice bazaar. We were kind of hungry, and we noticed people were tasting the dried fruits to decide whether or not to buy them. So we went from stall to stall and sampled. In the end I bought some really delicious dried figs. We then headed back to our hotel for a good, long nap. After naptime we headed out to find dinner. We just walked up to each restaurant to check the menu for something to eat. We finally decided on one not too far from the hotel. We had been warned by my roommate about supposedly free food. So when they brought us a basket of bread, we tried to ask if it was free. Of course they didn’t speak English, so we ended up spending a lot of time making a mockery of ourselves to find out that it was indeed free. The same exact thing happened with the next basket of bread we got. It was great food. But when it came time to pay the waiter brought the check and just stood there. This was of course awkward because we were discussing how to split the check and how much to tip. Then we had to ask for change and that was a whole new discussion of pantomiming and broken English. We then headed back home and planned our next day.
Coming up next: Dolmabahce Palace, Eyup, and freshly-caught fish sandwiches…
