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Most Memorable Vacation, Post 8 of 8 – Istanbul

It’s been a while since my previous post in this series, and I can’t stand to see it remain unfinished any longer.

Our final stop on the cruise was Istanbul. We arrived early in the morning and were scheduled to depart for home the following morning, so we had a day to explore the city.

We were both sad to leave the ship. It was beautiful, and we’d had such a wonderful time aboard it. I recommend Windstar without hesitation, and I’m already dreaming about taking another Windstar cruise.

We rode shuttle buses from the port to our hotel. We boarded a bus and were told that our luggage would not fit, so it would go in the bus behind us – a bus on which no other passengers were riding.

I wasn’t comfortable with that, so I asked to ride on the other bus instead. The driver acquiesced, but I could sense his impatience.

At the hotel, it was too early to check in, so the attendant suggested that we leave our bags in a holding area. When we entered the holding area, we found that it opened directly to the outside, and the door was ajar.

I wasn’t comfortable with that either, so I asked if they could please find us a room – even one that hadn’t yet been cleaned, so that we would have a secure place to store our luggage. The attendant argued that the holding area was secure, but when I told him that I saw the door to the outside was ajar, he relented and asked us to wait while they prepared a room.

We sat outside, overlooking the Bosphorus, reading while our stomachs rumbled. There had been no breakfast served on board that morning.

Finally we were allowed to check into our room and left our luggage there before heading out to explore.

Our hotel was in Taksim, north of the Golden Horn – the river that feeds into the Bosphorus and flows south into the Sea of Marmara. We walked down the main thoroughfare in Taksim – Istiklal Cadesi (“Freedom Street”) – and wound our way down to the Galata Bridge, which leads over the Golden Horn into Eminonu, where the Misir Carsisi (Egyptian Spice Bazaar) is located.

We wandered through the bazaar, admiring the baskets of grains and spices. As before, many shopkeepers called out to us, but the one who got my attention was the one who spoke to me in French. I was secretly pleased to have been mistaken for European, so I replied in French and we entered his booth to have tea and make our purchases.

The tea was delicious – lemon and lime – and Kyle enjoyed choosing some spices (which – thank god – we never used; a few months later he looked at the contents of the plastic bags holding the spices and found BUGS in there). Shopping in Turkey wasn’t so bad when we were actually planning to BUY something.

We left the bazaar and walked further south to Sultanahmet, where most of the major sights are located. First we headed to a restaurant recommended by Let’s Go – Doy-Doy. We sat on the top floor, with a view of the Blue Mosque and the Sea of Marmara, drinking tea and eating kebap. It tasted delicious going down, but as Kyle remarked later that day, the aftertaste was not pleasant. But it was inexpensive, and Doy-Doy had an old poster of Bryan Adams framed and hung on the second floor (without a trace of irony), so we were amused and satisfied.

Next we headed to the Blue Mosque. We walked around it to find the visitor’s entrance, and passed the fountains outside where men were washing themselves prior to prayer. As we came to the entrance, the call to prayer was sounded, which meant that we would not be allowed to enter until after prayer time. So we walked on to Hagia Sophia instead.

Hagia Sophia was built by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 6th c. AD and converted to a mosque by Mehmet the Conqueror in the 15th century. It is now a museum, and what I found most interesting were the Ottoman efforts to subdue the Byzantine decorations. Many layers of plaster had been applied over beautiful mosaics, such as this one:

 

Below is the domed ceiling above the nave.

 

When we exited Hagia Sofia, the most recent prayer time at the Blue Mosque had ended, so we headed directly back. We removed our shoes, and I put a scarf (provided at the entrance) over my head.The Blue Mosque was built in the 17th century and has blue Iznik tiles on the inside, as well as six minarets. Sultan Ahmet, who was responsible for the mosque’s construction, financed a seventh minaret for the mosque at Mecca so it would not be equaled by the Blue Mosque.

The Blue Mosque is beautiful, but my strongest impression of it was the difference between the area where the men prayed…

 

…and the area where the women prayed.

 

The men prayed out in the open, while the women prayed behind wood panels.Our next destination was the Underground Cistern. On wooden walkways, we walked above a shallow pool of water with hundreds of illuminated supportive columns rising out of it.

 

It was quiet and soothing until a crowd of schoolchildren entered. But by that point, we were on the far side of the cistern, looking for the Medusa heads at the base of two columns.

 

When we left the cistern, I was exhausted – and to be perfectly honest, homesick. I missed my little Goosie, and I was tired of avoiding eye contact with merchants, and it was even a little chilly out. But I couldn’t pass up a visit to Topkapi Palace – the residence of the Sultans and their families and wives during the Ottoman Empire.The palace is vast and ostentatious and filled with treasures from the Ottoman period. We purchased only the base admission, which meant that we didn’t see the Harem or the Topkapi dagger or the Spoonmaker’s Diamond.

More than anything else, I enjoyed the porcelain collections in the Palace kitchens and the view of the Sea of Marmara from the Fourth Court. I was also fascinated by the Hall of the Treasury, in which portraits of all 37 sultans were displayed. Kyle preferred the displays of weaponry and armor.

I’m sure our tour of the palace was rushed and perhaps we would have enjoyed it more if we’d had more time to spend there. But it was cold and I was hungry, so we began the long walk back to our hotel, passing by even MORE merchants. At least this one had a sense of humor about how overbearing they could be (click to enlarge and read the signs above the doorways).

We did make one pit stop after crossing the Galata bridge back to the north side of the Golden Horn. The Let’s Go guide had recommended a funky cafe just off Istiklal Cadesi, and we decided to stop there.

We flopped down on some multicolored cushions, gaped at the decor, and inhaled a cappucino and some tiramisu. I think I smiled and relaxed for the first time that day.

Fortified by caffeine, we were ready to climb the rest of the way to our hotel, stopping one more time for a few simits. Back in our room, I took a hot bath and relaxed before bed. We had a long flight ahead of us the next day (including a six-hour layover at Heathrow).

We truly enjoyed our cruise – all of it. Obviously, some parts we enjoyed more than others, but that’s the case with any vacation.

I hope this series of posts has been informative, or entertaining at the very least. If you have any specific questions about our travels, please feel free to e-mail me directly.

Published by mothergoosemouse on August 18th, 2006 tagged Look at me, look at me!, The king of beers, Who me?