Advertisement
Published: December 11th 2007
Edit Blog Post
I went for four days in an organized tour in Istanbul from 4 December 2003 to 7 December 2003.
I took the plane in the Charles de Gaulle terminal 3 in Paris.
I had a comfortable room with heating and tub.
I visited the Suliman the Magnificent mosque.
The building is imposing.
It's the biggest mosque in Istanbul.
I had to take off my shoes before I went in the mosque. A man was selling
slippers at 2 Euros the pair. He was seeking his own profit.
The immense interior is born by four imposing recangular pillars.
This mosque's architect is Sinan.
He is one of the most renowned architects of Islam.
He is the equivalent of Michelangelo in Europe.
There is no human representation, no portrait, no statue like in our churches.
It is forbidden by the islamic religion.
The walls are decorated with abstract motives or calligraphies of famous masters.
Windows ornate the walls. They don't represent a peculiar motive but rather color effects
with very near grains.
The floor is totally covered with a red velvet pile.
They are lateral galleries at a certain height that were for the women initially.
The men prayed
separated from the women.
The tradition was lost and women may pray with men.
Outside is a cemetery with the tomb Suliman the Magnificent and his wife Roxane.
There is a garden near this place.
On one side, there is a viewpoint on the Bosphorus that was a little gruesome with
an alignement of chimneys made of stone in a curved shape in the muslim style and seedy houses.
The blue mosque is a curiosity.
It is the only mosque in the world that has got six minarets.
I was with the group of tourists I belonged to in the Egyptian bazaar.
It is a building that can be crossed by walking in a hall.
A lot of shopkeepers present their stalls with spices, food, decorative trinkets, cushions and other items.
Outside there was a souk where a lot of things and even pets in cages could be found.
I bought loukoums, a decorated plate with abstract motives and four T-shirts with eastern scenes.
Every time, I had interesting prices.
In Istanbul, the prices are never indicated. They are dickered.
The more you talk, the more the price is lowered.
The shopkeepers speak a little
English which helps the foreign tourists.
The ideal is to know the turkish language.
We went to see a show with top models who presented a collection of leather jackets.
We drank authorn tea.
The items were proposed with 40% off the normal price and were guaranteed for two years.
Their prices were however high.
We took the minibus for another destination.
Since there were many traffic jams, we took another way in the suburbs.
The journey was very long.
The city of Istanbul is huge.
There are 14 millions inhabitants.
We went to a restaurant near the sea where we ate turkish side-dishes and fish.
We did a cruise on the Bosphorus.
The weather was sunny.
I could see the houses on pileworks that cost several tens of millions of dollars.
Some of them are in a very bad state.
On the boat's deck, I was near an old japanese man who had photographed one of these old houses falling in ruins.
It had a tattered frontage and windows in bad state.
On the asian shore, I saw towers of ottoman fortresses.
The sea was more agitated when the boat arrived in
Istanbul.
The mosques appeared far in the fog in the waning light of the end of the afternoon.
I visited the Topkapi palace that was the fortress of the sultan.
It was immense.
A terrace gives a view of the Bosphorus.
The very vast courtyards are set in a very geometric manner in the muslim style.
A room contains a miniature of the palace at the time of its building.
There are very long decorated sabers.
Calligraphies are displayed at the wall on metal or on a stone.
In the next room, there are things that are considered as relics of Mahomet.
A remain of a tooth and hair of the prophet would have been retrieved and are kept in boxes ornated with jewels.
There is a declaration.
A muezzin was singing verses of the Kuran in the room.
In a palace's angle, there was the sultan's room.
The room was big and all in stone. All around were placed
big couches with a cushion at each end.
Each was near a window.
In the middle was an utensil in silvered metal to heat the room.
I saw coaches of different sultans
that looked difficult of access to the public.
I went back to a neighborhood where there is a wharf.
Shopkeepers were selling fish and food.
I walked a lot.
I went back to my hotel.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.064s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0263s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb