Brian succeeded in getting Rob up and going first thing in the morning for their day of touring. They had breakfast at the hotel, where there was a normal Turkish breakfast, but also some other odd things. He realized that there was a Japanese delegation staying at the hotel and so there were Japanese offerings as well. And then noticed American offerings as well. The details were not being missed at the hotel.
Rob marveled at eating honeycomb for his first time at breakfast. Brian remembered eating honeycomb at the Meeker Festival in Puyallup when he was a kid.
They took a cab over the Golden Horn to start their day touring at Topkapi Sarayi (Topkapi Palace). When they entered, Brian thought it was pretty cool, and pretty cool that there wasn't even an entrance fee. Then he realized that he hadn't even entered the palace itself yet (they were in the First Court still). There are displays inside with bits of religious history which were a little difficult to take seriously--a room containing a hair from Prophet Mohammed's beard, his sword, his tooth, etc., and another area which boasted St. John the Baptist's Arm and Skull encased in bronze and jewels. The devoted were quiet and awestruck, but Brian felt somewhat humored by the whole thing.
The harem was skipped, but the grounds were explored, and Brian imagined what a strange life it would have been, with guards all over the place, assassins sneaking in, and how the layout of the palace lends itself to political intrigue. There are separate buildings for many of the rooms, just plunked down where they may be, like an inlaw's bedroom, for instance. He was a bit underwhelmed though, because the maintenance of the buildings seemed lacking for such a landmark (but maybe buildings from the 1400's get to show some wear after all). But the view out onto the Bosphorus wrapped around and showed them a view of "everything"...all the places they were going to visit, and some they wouldn't have time for.
From Topkapi, they walked to Aya Sofya (Hagia Sofia) to tour the great church built in 537. In 1453 it was converted to a mosque, and in 1935 Ataturk declared it a museum. They approached it from along the back wall, and Brian was surprised at the disrepair he saw, and the line of little stalls tucked between the churches butresses ...much like the odd combination of shopping malls beneath modern mosques, or like the pharmacy in the bottom of the mosque down the road from our apartment.
As they rounded the corner to approach the front of the church, a huge black Yamaha advertisement bus blocked the entire view. It was parked and letting prospective buyers sample the sounds from Yamaha stereo equipment and blasting music into the street. Quite an eyesore. And right next to it was a horse buggy.
So much for the ogretman indirim (teacher discount). Brian asked at the admission gate, even showed his ID badge, and still no discount. They were a bit stingy at the old Aya Sofya. "It was really nice inside, but there was some paint flaking..." well, I suppose so. There was scaffolding in one area where repairs were being made, probably an unending process. It seems that the building's design was a template for future mosques, but of course it was first a church, which seems a bit curious. The crosses inside were drawn over when the Muslims took over, but the underlying markings are now peeking out from behind. The guards are quite concerned about uv light damaging the paintings (no flash photography for instance), but have missed the science...Brian tried to open a window on the same wall as some paintings to let more light in and a guard hurried to stop him, but a window opposite the paintings was flooding the space with light...light that could actually reach the paintings.
It was also interesting to consider that our whole 13 story apartment building could fit under the central dome.
Brian was a little disappointed to see that the construction was fired brick instead of cut stone. In his mind's eye, ancient buildings and landmarks are of course built with cut stone, not bricks. But this one has held up pretty well so far.
Inside were little raised platforms complete with half-walls, like little sheds. These were built by people to stake their claim to their own little prayer space. What kinds of people, we don't know for sure.
Next it was time for the Sultan Ahmet Camii (Blue Mosque). This is still a functioning mosque, so there was a separate entrance for the tourists, who were still expected to remove their shoes and place them in the racks and racks just for that purpose. Brian felt a bit awkward gawking at the worshipers and entering their space, even more so when he noticed that not all of the tourists were respecting the expected dress code while inside the mosque.
Women worshipers in the prayer space are separated from the others behind a lattice screen, and only men are allowed to pray in the main common prayer space. There was a little office set up inside with pamphlets for those people moved enough to seek out more information about the muslim faith.
A quick walk along the Atmeydani (Hippodrome) uncovered some relics that are in too good of shape to believe. The Obelisk of Theodosius was carved in Egypt of granite in 1500 BC, but its reliefs are too crisp to believe. The nearby Rough-Stone Obelisk from the 4th century is a bit more believable. The actual hippodrome has been filled in over time with construction debris and the stalls torn down, so it holds little similarity to what it once was. Brian was amazed at the different rates of weathering of the marble on the monuments, and wondered how much masons actually understood about the chemical weathering of different stones.
He was also amazed at how much weathering could be seen all over in Istanbul on seemingly unweatherable marble stairs and walks. Marble is hard, it shouldn't show wearing in the center of stairs, even over 100's of years of footsteps, right?!
Time for a quick and cheap lunch at Sultanahmet Koftecisi, a Turkish fast food chain. No dallying for food when there are other sites to see! Rob got to enjoy some of the challenges of Turkey and being a foreigner: finding only ATMs that were out of cash or off-line (even though it always seems it must be your card that is the problem) and being accosted by beggars and street vendors.
Off to the cistern to view the water storage of ancient times. Brian and Rob thought they were at the Yerebatan Sarnici (Basilica Cistern) and were hopelessly looking for the medusa head columns and overwhelming size of the great cistern. Turns out they were actually in the Binbirdirek Sarnici (Binbirdirek Cistern/Cistern of 1001 Columns) instead. It was a curious setup, with glass box rooms erected inside, all set up for parties and ready to go, much like the glass box smoking rooms in airports like Las Vegas. Some of the rooms were not set up for parties but instead had art exhibits, in fact one of the exhibits had a photo of the medusa head column they were looking for. The bonus of the plain-columned, boring cistern: a free cup of tea.
After a very frustrating taxi ride through horrible traffic to Rumeli Hisari (Fortress of Europe) near the Fatih Bridge...in which the meter jumped inexplicably from 36 lira to 72 and then the driver claimed the 50 lira note Rob gave him was only a 5 note...they realized that they had arrived at 4:45 and the fortress closed at 4:30. So they walked back toward Taksim for the evening (trying to walk through some of the traffic instead of sitting stuck in it in a taxi again), stopped at Starbucks to utilize their WC (restrooms), and took in more of the street sights of Istanbul. Brian reflected on how the bridges across the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus wiped out centuries of ferry businesses and left the boats and their drivers useless.
They had a simple dinner at the hotel and crashed for the night, all tuckered out from a busy day.
More pictures from today:
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2009-04-05 Istanbul |
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