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Published: April 8th 2015
Day1: 20th March
My husband and I set out for our 3rd official international trip. Intention of this trip being our 2nd wedding anniversary celebration. We catch an 8.25 am Turkish airline flight to Istanbul. Breakfast at one of the lounges at the airport as well as a late one on the flight. We get out of the airport sometime after 12 and head to the taxi stand (taksi is what they call it). Its clearly been raining heavily and a taksi drenched in rain water arrives for us. Not to forget mentioning that the temperature was around 5 degree celsius with feels like temperature of 2 degree celsius. We show him our hotel address and he clearly cannot speak english. Thankfully he does know the area.
The hotel we stayed at in Istanbul was Hotellino. The selection of this hotel was based on reviews on tripadvisor and booking.com. We tend to religiously follow these sites while booking our hotels. The other reason for this hotel choice was the proximity to the tourist attractions. We stayed 3 nights here in March end. The hotel staff are very warm and helpful; especially the hotel manager Mr Tuna. On our arrival itself he discussed with us our plans for each day & recommended places to go to marking everything on the map he provided. My husband had a turkish coffee while I had a turkish tea as our welcome drinks. Tuna also gave us a travel card for our transportation which we could top up for travel in tram, bus & metro. We stayed in room no 501 which was a standard room with a little balcony. The hotel is at a perfect location with close proximity (2 min walk) to the tram station and just a short walking distance to some tourist attractions.Once we checked out our room which was neat and had a homely feel to it...we set out to Hagia Sophia and Basilica Cistern. We realised that we pretty much had just a couple of hours till everything closes.
Hagia Sophia was a Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica (church), later an imperial mosque, and now a museum. Its date of construction is 537 AD. In 1453, it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II, who ordered this main church of the Orthodox Christianity converted into a mosque. It was then secularized and opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.
With two religions under one roof, the walls literally tell you what was happening through time..
The Basilica Cistern was built in the 6th century during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. Historical texts claim that 7,000 slaves were involved in the construction of the cistern. Fifty-two stone steps descend into the entrance of the cistern. The cistern has the capacity to store 100,000 tons of water, despite being virtually empty today with only a few feet of water lining the bottom and lots of fish in it. The ceiling is supported by a forest of 336marble columns, ancient texts suggest that the tears on the column pay tribute to the hundreds of slaves who died during the construction of the Basilica Cistern. The upside down Medusa was placed that way specifically because she would be the same height right side up.
We had dinner at Paşazade Restaurant which serves Ottoman Cuisine. Its among the most popular restaurants in Sulthanahmet district. My husband enjoyed the food. I guess Ottoman cuisine is not top on my list
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Usha Devadas
non-member comment
Well Done
Congrats my dear on the wonderful start. Glad you got down to do it without much delay. It will be a refreshing change to read all that you saw and witnessed with your own interpretation of it. Much better than reading monotonous reports from travel websites. Good job. Go right ahead !