Istanbul

Istanbul was crazy. Both a too-much-to-do-too-little-time crazy, and a super-dense-very-foreign-feeling-city crazy. Fortunately, it wasn't crazy in a get-tear-gassed-and-get-beaten-by-the-police way, which was what we were expecting. It helps also that geographically, Istanbul is cut into three parts by a couple of massive waterways, so even if there had been protests, they were practically on another continent.

Like this waterway separating Asia (right) from Europe (opposite of right)

We met up with Conor at our hotel and then set out touristing. We went straight for the Hagia Sophia. I thought it was special that when the Turks invaded Istanbul (Constantinople) in the 1400's they turned the massive church into a mosque. That is I thought it was special until I learned they did that to every single church in the city. The Hagia Sophia is probably the oldest place we'd been so far. 

Looking up

Looking down

And to the side. I think I saw this in my history textbook.

Here's one of the Sultan's tombs. They're above ground and very pretty. You can see all the small coffins from many many dead heirs.

How did one Sultan come to have as many children as in the above photo you wonder? 

Next stop was the Harem! Turns out it's a museum. :(

Harem balcony

The Harem was attached to Topkapi Palace, home of Istanbuls sultans starting in the 15th century (until their dissolution in the early 20th century). There were no pictures allowed in the Palace's treasuries there but: wow. If I've learned anything on this trip, it's that any time you're somewhere there is a Treasury Tour, take it. You see countless priceless things, and generally a great many things that are just below priceless (ie very very expensive) You also tend to see fake things on treasury tours, like King David's Sword or Moses' staff. I hope those were fake at least, because if they were real I definitely didn't spend enough time standing impressed by them. 

We went right across the way from the Hagia Sophia and the Palace to the Blue Mosque, the city's largest active mosque.

They're really all directly across from each other

They give you stuff to cover up with once you're inside if you're dressed too ____

After, we went to the Grand Bazaar (which totally lived up to its name) and a few museums. Lots of crazy stuff in the museums. More parts of the Gates at Ishtar than I care to count and lots and lots of Mesopotamian and Roman stuff.

Grand Bazaar. It's huge maze just like this

I wish they'd translated it. Maybe it's bad.

 

Gotta get to the Louvre

Also the Cistern is really really cool. 

There are many many fish in that water

Roman aqueduct dumps out down there, into this massive repository of water that you definitely don't want to drink from nowadays. Absolutely gorgeous.

We also went to the Mosaic Museum, which wasn't what I expected. I anticipated mosaics in frames or something. Turned out to be the floor and foundation of the Byzantine Emperor's palace from the 6th century in it's original spot (found under a market). The floor was one massive mosaic.

It goes on for awhile in both directions

We found lots of stray animals in the city. Sometimes I felt like we were in a big petting zoo where you don't want to pet the animals cause you might catch something (but lots of people are doing it anyway).

Everyone was taking pictures of this cat for some reason

So Istanbul was great. We've been in Rome for a couple days now and between the two cities, I can't even process wonder anymore. We've seen too many mind boggling things and I'm having a complete culture overload. I finding trouble having sympathy for myself.

Poor Brendan