Wandering in Istanbul...

After yesterday's somewhat inauspicious start, we arrived safely  and almost on time in Istanbul, just after sunset. An easy 60 minute taxi ride brought us into the old city to our hotel, only a couple of blocks from the Grand Bazaar.  After a light snack, both Norma and I called it a day after being on the road for roughly 24 hours straight.  

We each slept like logs, and fortunately I set the alarm so that we didn't miss our breakfast!  10+ hours of sleep was just what we needed, and a good hot breakfast was right behind it on our list.  The Niles Hotel where we are staying has a wonderful rooftop restaurant with a view out to the Sea of Marmara.
After breakfast, we headed out for our first day of exploring.

First stop was to check out the Grand Bazaar, the world's most visited tourist  destination (90+ million visitors per year) and the first real enclosed shopping mall (built in 1730!).
Architecturally it was pretty impressive, but as far as shopping goes, not that much different from most European downtown shopping districts, albeit with a bit more dominated by jewelry and carpet dealers!

After the Bazaar, we headed down the street to the Hagia Sophia, among the oldest religious buildings in the world (537 AD). 
Originally built as a Christian cathedral by Byzantine Romans in what was then Constantinople, the church was repurposed as a mosque after the fall of the eastern Roman Empire in 1453- sort of the reverse of many of the churches we've visited in Spain which started out as mosques. A pretty impressive piece of architecture, to say the least...

Finally, we spent the afternoon wandering the huge Topkapi Palace complex, the center of the royal government during the Ottoman Empire. 
The collections of royal artifacts, including jewelry, clothing, and weaponry were among the most impressive we've seen anywhere.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yes- we survived Saigon and the Scooterpocalypse!

Image
Saigon is big, busy, loud, stiflingly hot, and absolutely over-run by scooters, but still worth a visit... but 3 days was plenty! We learned a lot about the craziness of the 20th century here (and our uncomfortable role in it), layered on top of what we'd already seen in Hanoi and Hue.  I'm still amazed at how open and friendly everyone here is, but I suppose the obvious growing prosperity here has bred a very forward looking optimism.  Architecturally, Saigon is a blend of modern, French colonial, and a bit of traditional Vietnamese, with a strong NYC like feel to the central city.  There were several good museums, a really nice botanical garden, some great downtown avenues, and even more great food, at crazy cheap prices.  So no complaints, other than the heat.  95-100F at high humidity just isn't much fun for wandering around ba city on foot!   so... Tomorrow we are ...
Read more

...on to the Mekong and Laos!

Image
Having spent 7 days in Chiang Mai doing typical city things, mostly on foot, we began our nest part of trip with a 4 hour van drive to Chiang Khong, on the Mekong River along the border with northwestern Laos. We left Chiang Mai relatively early (8:30) after yet another wonderful breakfast at our hotel, and were quickly out into the Thai countryside. Initially, we drove along the flat Ping River valley through rice paddies and various exurban commercial sprawl until reaching the mountains that frame the valley and much or northern Thailand. After several winding hours of driving, we first reached a new "Wat" or Buddhist temple, completed only 15 years ago named WatSang Karw Photiyan. This included a rather striking garden full of ferns and orchids. Our guide, Suzy, was very helpful in explaining many of the traditional design elements in the temple and their significance in Thai Buddhist culture. After seeing this new Buddhist temple, we...
Read more

On to Chiang Mai

Image
We'll, we've been exploring Chiang Mai in the north west of Thailand now for three days, and thoroughly enjoying the change from both Ko Tao and Bangkok.  Bangkok was a typical Southeast Asian capital city - big, chaotic, bustling with energy and very hot and sticky ;-), Ko Tao was a typical beach town- very much like some of the places we've visited in Costa Rica. Chiang Mai is a busy city - the largest in the north of Thailand, but much less sprawling and developed in comparison to Bangkok.  More importantly, it's in the foothills of the Himalayas, so it's quite a bit cooler here!  Most days do far it's been in the high 70's to low 80's(F), so much more comfortable than at the beach or in Bangkok, where it was a humid 90F+ every day... We're staying in a small hotel in the old city - about a mile square area surrounded by the protective most built in the 14th century.  While much of the historic architecture has been lost, the many rema...
Read more