Kerrie's Blog: Istanbul

Tuesday, 30th May 2011

After another 4 hr flight arrived in Istanbul late on Sunday night, caught taxi to the Hotel. I have to say this is the smallest hotel lift I have ever been in. It holds 3 people, maximum

The hotel room is very nice, comfy beds, good air con. Very important as it is around 26 degrees here but fairly high humidity. Once outside there is often a sea breeze, but stuffy in the room.

We did not go out tonight, as we are both a bit tired. My head cold continues to be annoying. Just went to bed and read for a while. Was not disappointed with the "call to prayer" at midnight, a very jaunty singing affair. As expected, some nice gardens here

After a late start, we enjoyed breakfast in the hotel, Andy made friends with the cat - a spitting image of Kurt and Amanda's cat - Matilda. There are lots of cats in Istanbul we have discovered.

Then off to investigate the immediate vicinity.

Like many tourist destinations you are constantly bothered by people trying to sell you things. The ones that were the most annoying I have to say were the sellers of tourist books in the square of the Blue Mosque. Andy got rather irritated, as you can imagine.

Entering the Blue Mosque

I was unable to enter the Blue Mosque itself, as I did not have a head scarf. Will take one with me tomorrow

We sat in the park for a while and enjoyed the passing parade. Yes, look closely, that is me in the red skirt.

Lots of nice fountains here, and people take advantage of them

Mind you, this is definitely a tourist mecca, and we were surrounded by large German/Italian/Japanese tour groups, so it was interesting to have to wait in line to take a photo.

The Haghia Sophia Mosque is closed today for cleaning, so that will be on tomorrow's agenda. We did take advantage of a tour of the Basilica Cisterns, a 526 AD Roman waterway. Nice and cool underground, and very interesting.

One of the key interesting facts here is the positioning of two heads of Medusa

The first head is placed on it's side, while the second head has deliberately been placed upside down. It is thought that the heads were brought to the cistern after being removed from a building of the late Roman period. There is no written evidence that suggests they were used as column pedestals previously. Tradition has it that the blocks are oriented sideways and inverted in order to negate the power of the Gorgons' gaze

Hard to see but the water in this Cistern is full of rather large fish

Did a bit of haggling with a tour operator, and we have booked a 3 night, 4 day tour that will take us to Gallipoli, and Ephesus, we leave for that on Thursday 2nd June. There is a lot of driving in the first couple of days, but then we have an extra overnight stay to recuperate after Ephesus. We fly back to Istanbul.

Had a yummy lunch in one of the original restaurants here, built in 1920. Turkish meatballs and salad ... hmmmmmmmmm!

Off now to the shops to see if I can find an adapter for the power plug. Fingers crossed or this may be the last blog for a while :-)

Power adapter has been found and installed and I am now powered up again. We visited the Grand Bazaar this afternoon, 4,000 stalls. Very scary actually. I was very good and just looked. It will be a different story tomorrow I am sure.

I found this graveyard very fascinating. It was in immaculate condition

This might have been a sailor.

I have to say that the young Turkish men are very sharp dressers. They wear very trendy clothing and such amazing shoes. I plan to get some pics tomorrow of the shoe shops, about every 4th shop specialises in men's shoes. And they are reasonably cheap - about $45 AUD.

Elanda, we both turned vegetarian tonight, had this delicious meal at one of the many local restaurants - Andy had the chef salad and I had the eggplant/goats cheese dish. Both served with delicious Turkish bread of course.