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With our time running out in Istanbul we still had a couple of places to see, abandoning the thought of public transport we opted for a taxi to get a head start on the day. Woolly says – Jo hadn’t told me a lot about our first destination but I had caught a snippet of conversation about Mini Turks, maybe we were off to visit Woolly sized Turkish people, it’s always nice to meet people of your own vertically challenged proportions so as the taxi sped through the city I kept my eyes peeled for some new friends.
He hadn’t heardcorrectly but then when you consider the amount of jam and marmalade he stores in his ears this is hardly surprizing. Miniatürk is a miniature park situated at the north-eastern shore of the Golden Horn in Istanbul. Opened in May 2003 it covers a total area of 60,000 m2 and is one of the world's largest miniature cities containing 122 models built in 1/25th scale. It is the Turkish equivalent of Madurodam in The Netherlands (re-christened Woolly World following our visit there last year, well according to the Mammoth). Woolly says – collecting our
tickets and our audio cards I bounced through the gates and set off down the pathways, first stop was a quick game of chess which proved to be very heavy going so giving up on my checkmating anyone I scurried along the route. Beautiful Mosques in miniature greeted me and after scanning my handy card I was given short bursts of information, just enough to listen to and certainly not enough to get bored by. A Roman agora came next which looked most impressive and we added it to our mental list of places to visit. Out of the corner of my eye I spied one of my all-time favourite places, Mount Nemrut, I galloped over only to be brought up short, what had they done? It looked nothing like the real thing.
It was most peculiar, not only were all the heads of Nemrut intact but the mountain right next to the mount was geographically inaccurate and shouldn’t even be there. Woolly says – I wasn’t impressed and feeling slightly under whelmed we carried onto peer at the exhibition that was supposed to be Cappadocia, daughter Zoe looked over and shrugging her shoulders
remarked ‘is that it’, no it’s not, it’s much, much better than that. Pammukale had the same lack of impact and starting to feel rather despondent we crossed the mini suspension bridge to see what had been done to the historical buildings of Istanbul itself.
These buildings were much better and as Woolly excitedly ran round shouting out all the places he recognised from our tours over the last couple of days, the park seemed to have redeemed itself. Woolly says – Much better and feeling joyous we settled in the sunshine for a snack before entering the inside part of the museum. With a huge display depicting the Gallipoli Campaign and many pictures of the most revered leader, Ataturk it proved to be very interesting. I spotted a much darker corner with some glowing lights so padded my way over to see what other delights were on offer. I was met by the most beautiful sight of glittering crystal showing sixteen of Istanbul’s most famous landmarks, as the small exhibits rotated and changed colour I oohhed and arrhed at the twinkly display.
This small section of the museum kept the mammoth captivated for several minutes before he decided that we needed to look into getting a crystal effigy of himself made! Before this thought could take shape we took our leave of the park, not a bad place to go but not a patch on the Dutch version, but worth a visit none the less. Still being uncertain about using public transport we observed a stray taxi parked up and pointing to our map asking if we could be taken there, no problem the driver told us, five minutes and off we went.
Woolly says – What’s going on? Where are they taking me? I peered out of the window looking for clues and nearly fell off my perch when I saw an aeroplane on top of a building just as we pulled up below it, oh wow this did look worth a visit. Leaving Jo to buy our tickets I shot through the entrance and into the Rahmi M Koc Museum.
The museum is the first in Turkey dedicated to the history of transport, industry and communications. Based on a private collection of Rahmi M. Koç who was a member of the wealthiest dynasty in Turkey and retired boss of the
Koç Group, he founded the museum in 1991 before opening it to the public in 1994. Our lovely friends John and Gwen had recommended it as a place not to be missed and they were so right. Woolly says – it was fantastic with computers from Jo’s childhood which were bigger than a table, to beautiful arrangements of cars from around the world including mini’s, Rolls Royce’s and many huge American cars, I picked out a few to add to my ever growing birthday list. As we wandered through section after section we feasted our eyes on motorbikes, steam engines and trams, even better we were allowed to climb aboard and sit in the splendour of the carriages. With throats dry we paused for a snack break at the 1950’s coke cola truck before continuing our investigation of the boats and ships on offer, not to mention a submarine, this place just got better and better. With time racing away we crossed the road and deciding that the planetarium would have to wait for another visit we padded as quickly as our aching paws and feet would allow us through the old
movie camera’s on show and onto the hundreds of model ships, planes and steam engines, so much to see and no time to see it, we HAVE to come back. As we staggered back into daylight we flagged down a passing cab to return us to our hotel and our transfer to the airport. What a trip, three days and we could have spent at least another week without running out of things to do and places to see, Istanbul the Mammoth will be back.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
WOW
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