Both of our cruises visit Istanbul with the Greek Island one ending there with an overnight and the Greek Turkey Intensive one starting and ending in Istanbul with another overnight. These are the pictures and notes from our first overnight and the full day in Istanbul. We chose to hire a private tour guide from Tours By Locals for the first visit and are very glad we did. Ali was a great guide. We got into town around 3pm so we had the evening (a Friday) to enjoy. Not sure what I expected Istanbul to be like, but I know I found it interesting, maybe a little exotic and very clean. Our ship was the only one in the harbor that night others would join in the middle of the day on Saturday.
Turkey and the Bosphorus Strait have been in the news with the war in Ukraine. The city of Istanbul spans two continents. The Bosphorus Strait that divides Istanbul is the only way in and out of the Black Sea. It’s been a strategic locations for century’s, which is why Jeff is going on a tour to Gallipoli. More on that in another post.
After navigating their very modern and very large port we found Ali at the top of the escalater as planned just not the first one but about the 3rd or 4th! Plan was to do a Bosphorous Cruise, explore the Asian side some, dinner and back to the ship. So we hopped on the local tram for a couple of stops till we got to the correct ferry terminal for our cruise. We rode the public ferry boat for about a 2 hour cruise. During that time we only made about 4 stops. The Bosphorous Strait is a very, very busy water way. There are lots of smaller ferry boats going back and forth to get people quickly from one side to the other, there are pleasure crafts both personal and commercial and there are large seagoing commercial vessels. There are 3 large bridges that span the strait - 2 are large suspension bridges with one being less than 10 years old. Most of the buildings are typical office or apartment looking buildings, but there is some variation too. We also saw a beach resort and alot of huge gorgeous houses right on the water. On the European side a number of years ago the country built a road in front of their houses that is actually a long causeway around the bay trying to reduce traffic.
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| Attractive Mosque with 2 Minarets |
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Beylerbeyi Palace
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When our cruise ended, we got off at the oldest neighborhood on the Asian side. In general, the Asian side is more residential than the European side. We walked for a few blocks to see how the locals live; the shops they visit, their local coffeeshops, etc. We got lucky and their weekly farmer's market was still going on so we walked around it some. It was covered and somewhat of a confined area, but oh did some of the produce look good! I saw lots of nice ripe strawberries. Jeff was oogling the tomatoes. I was amazed at the pears because they were small - smaller than the nectarines they had. Then we decided to head slowly over to the European side and the cruise port area to have dinner there since none of us were hungry yet. We crossed the Galatin Bridge which seemed pretty old, but in good shape. It had walkways separated from the car traffic. In the pedestrian area, there were a lot of men fishing. Ali said that is how some men spend most days. Then we got to the new cruise port and mall. So picture downtown Disney or some other theme park restaurant entertainment area and you have a good feel for their new cruise port area. We explored it for a few minutes and then sat down at a restaurant facing the water by the walkway so a nice breeze and view. All 3 of us had a nice Turkish beer - it was on the light side and not bitter at all. Then we had 2 appetizers and a main course. We started with an eggplant dish that Jeff and I put on bread which was followed by stuffed mussels. Now until this year neither Jeff nor I had ever eaten mussels. We first had them in a broth in England. That was nice, but these stuffed ones were much better. Ali showed us how to eat them. They came with the shells open one on top of the other with some stuffing on top of the mussel itself. You picked both shells up kind of slip the mussel and stuffing onto one shell and slipped the whole thing in you mouth at once. You of course did not eat the shell. We followed that up with a lamb dish that came out in a ceramic dish with onions and something else with the oil/sauce still bubbling from the heat. After that Ali made sure we knew how to get back to our ship and left us to explore for awhile.
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| Dinner in Asia |
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| Our ship Azamara Onward in the background |
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| Lots of American fast food in Istanbul with a Burger King in this picture |
Because we weren't sure when we had to be back on the ship the next day, we agreed to start the day promptly at 8am. It turned out to be a very good plan. We never waited more than 5 minutes to get into any of the sites and we hit all of the key sites and were back at the ship around 3pm - exhausted. We saw: Hagia Sophia, the hippodrome, Serefiye Cistern, blue mosque, Topkapi Palace, Grand Bazaar, and the Spice Market. Oh we only sat to ride the tram and one time when I needed a short break. We were 3 people with a mission!
Hagia Sophia. It is something to see. It was first built as a Christian church in the 500s then converted to a Muslim mosque, to a museum and now back to an active mosque. Its architecture has been copied numerous times for both other churches and mosques. It is a large building with a main dome and 2 half domes. The main dome is 102 feet tall. The building is a couple of stories tall, but you can only visit the first floor. We had just enough time to see it before we had to leave so it could be readied for a prayer time. So off we went to explore more of Sultanahmet area which is all pedestrian and where you find most of the iconic Istanbul sites. (Click here for Link to Virtual Tour of Haifa Sophia.)
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| Baby Jesus |
Underground Cistern
The Cistern was not on our itinerary as it was being renovated. Ali surprised us when he said it had just reopened and this was his first time visiting. It’s vast (143m x 65m), larger than a football field. You may have seen it already in the movie Inferno with Tom Hanks. You may wonder how exciting can an ancient water storage facility be. With the recent renovation, its very cool. There is water everywhere, but only a few inches deep for effect. The cavernous space is jet black and then various colored lights fade in and out to allow you to see a portion of the space. The light reveals both ancient columns and modern sculptures to soft mood setting music. As you walk above the water, the light builds to reveal the vastness of the space. Oh yeah, the columns don’t match. They repurposed all sorts of columns from antiquity to build it. We even found an upside down head of Medusa as a base to one.
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| Modern art adorns the space |
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| Medusa as a base to a column |
On our way to the Blue Mosque we stopped and explored the hippodrome. These days the hippodrome is an area. There are a couple of the old columns still standing, but the building is long gone and the area has been built up. You can see how far down it is now in a spot. There is also an Egyptian obelisk that was a gift from Egypt. There is a similar one in Paris.
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| Egyptian Oblisk |
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| This is a famous sculpture of three intertwined snakes, but the heads have been lost |
Blue Mosque
From the Hippodrome we headed to the Blue Mosque which is unfortunately still under renovation. We were able to go inside, but with most walls covered it was not that impressive. Below are a few photos we took, but click here to see how it looked before the renovation started.
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| The columns are temporary to hold up scaffolding |
Topkapi Palace
Topkapi palace is MUCH bigger than either Jeff or I expected. It has lots of land including 4 or 5 courtyards. The first one is and has always been open to anyone and is very parklike. The palace has buildings that were governmental offices at the time, there are parts that were operational like kitchens, parts that were homes for workers and then the residential area for the king. It sits in a very prominent spot right on waterways (Golden Horn, Bosphorous Strait, Marmar Sea).
Ali led us through many buildings and explained things as we were walking around. Like for instance one of the first areas we saw were the kitchens. Remember I said the place was huge. Well the kitchens were built to feed 4000 people. Because they fed so many people everything is big like in the second photo those pots are kitchen utensils. Due to the size of them, only men worked in the kitchen - a women could not lift the pot.
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| each chimney is another kitchen and that’s only about half |
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| notice the size of the pots |
After the kitchen, one of the key areas we visited was the harem's quarters. This is where the Sultan's mother, wife, concubines and enuchs lived. This was a vast area with some parts quite beautiful. The concubines were brought to the palace as young women and groomed to potentially become the wife of the sultan. The enuchs were there as servents for the women. The Sultan's mother was over the whole area thus she had a nice apartment of her own and some others for her women friends.
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| harem courtyard |
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| Sultan's mother's apartment |
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| more of mother's apartment |
Sorry but much of the rest of the palace is a blur of gorgeous, old buildings. Amazingly this palace was vacated in the late 1800s for a new place that is directly on the Bosphorous Strait and kind of looks like an European Palace.
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| Sultan's throne |
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| Running water to cover private conversations |
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| patio in the final courtyard the Royal area |
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| Royal library in the Royal Courtyard area. Notice the triangular stands to hold books |
The grandeur of the palace is not limited to the buildings themselves. There are also a couple of areas that are museumlike in that they have things behind display cases. We saw the world's largest pink diamond, some gilt encrusted sabers, and some ancient religious documents both Christian and Muslim.
On our way out of the palace, we had a surprise. There is a Hagia Irene museum that is an old church. It has always been a Christian church - never converted. We were able to go inside of it. They are just starting to do some renovation to it.
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| outside Hagia Irene which is within the palace grounds |
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| cross in ceiling over alter |
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| alter area |
After the palace, we headed off to check out the bazars both the grand and the spice. Ali told us that the grand bazar is the oldest and largest shopping mall in the world. There are multiple entrances and hallways coming off of the major thoroughfares. We wandered around some and I got a pair of earrings and then we decided we had enough and headed out to go to the spice market. The spice market is much smaller and "L" shaped so a quick easy wander through. Then it was back to our ship for the day.
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| Carol in front of the Grand Bazar and then Ali and Carol wandering the main area |
