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Published: December 30th 2012
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Lovely Istanbul. What a beautiful city! And for a city of 16 million, it is surprisingly easy to get around. People are friendly, the food is excellent and the history is mind boggling! We love this city! We arrived the evening of Christmas day after fortunately uneventful flights. (Especially watching the snowstorms since then.)
We stumbled on Hotel Nena on trip advisors with so many positive reviews, we did wonder if they had hotel staff just typing away. But what a fantastic find!! By the end of our 4 days there, we even added to the glowing reviews. On the 7
th floor is a breakfast and dining area with this view of the Blue Mosque.
The night shot was taken the evening we arrived. It was just magical. The sunrise shot from the same spot. To stand there and watch the sunrise, listening to the Mullah’s Call to Prayers. (I recorded it with the picture posted here, but could not figure out how to attach a video to the blog.), It will definitely become one of those favorite travelling memories.
We spent the next 4 days roaming the city. Our
Blue Mosque at night
View from our hotel's balcony first three days, the weather was surprisingly warm and beautiful blue skies. So we put away the UnderArmour, gloves and hats and toured the city. After the stunning outside, our first stop was inside the Blue Mosque. It has an imposing entrance and a very large open interior with stained glass windows and beautiful ceilings. It was built in 1609.
Outside the Blue Mosque is the Hippodrome, where the Byzantine emperors enjoyed their chariot races. You could almost hear it on the cobblestone walkways as you stood there. The photo of the Egyptian obelisk was at one end of the Hippodrome. This was brought to Istanbul in 390 AD. This is when the age and history of things started to almost overwhelm us.
As we continued to roam the streets, we stumbled on the Basilica Cistern, built in 532! The friendly gentleman outside the entrance (yes, he did sell carpets) told us Bond was hiding behind one of the columns. He very well could have been, considering there are 336 columns, each one at least 20’ tall. The size was amazing, stretching more than a city block. It was eerie
yet beautiful (photo). In its day, it was filled with water for the city. Today it has about 2 ft of water and alot of fish. It also had the head of Medusa at the base of one of the columns (photo). We were never clear why it was there and upside down...
The other amazing structure was the Hagia Sophia, cited as one of Istanbul’s most famous monument. Originally built in 539, it was a Catholic Basilica, converted into a Mosque in 1453 and then turned into a museum in 1935. It is a beautiful building - a cathedral, with the large Arabic signs near the mosaics of the Virgin Mary and Christ child. If only religions could blend so easily.
With the weather holding, we enjoyed an afternoon ferry ride crossing the Bosphorus onto the Asian Continent, Istanbul’s other claim to fame, city straddling both Europe and Asian continents. The train station photo was a gift from the German Kaiser in 1914, quite recent for Istanbul’s history.
On Friday, we met a friend from Idaho British Car
Club, Keely Mills, who is attending her Jr year of college in Istanbul. A delicious Turkish lunch of Kebabs and we enjoyed hearing of her & Tippy’s adventures. We then took the bus to Taksim, an area known for the pedestrian shopping street, old style trams and the Galata Tower. Going to the top, we (along with about 300 of our closest, very close, friends) had a beautiful view of the city as the sun was setting. Keely told us we had been very lucky with the weather, as the week before it had been cold and rainy.
And on Saturday morning that is what we woke up to! Cold, wet, blustery winds, we took advantage of the wonderful cafes and then decided to try our first Turkish Haman (bath). We went to Suleymaniye Haman, a bath house that has been in operation since 1550. Complete with making us wear wooden shoes, we felt rather sultan-ish as we wandered about the spa. We could not resist taking quite the stylish photo of ourselves!
We enjoyed a wonderful sauna for 40 minutes where we laid on a hot marble slab, then
Egyptian Obelsik
Brought to Istanbul in late 4th century a rough scrub, interspersed with dumping pans of cold water. And then a wonderful soap massage. It was amazing! And definitely took the chill out of the day.
Tomorow, we fly to Cappadocia, @ 600 miles SE of Istanbul. It is known for its underground cities, cliff dwellings and amazing geological rock formations. The original inhabitants were Hittites @
1800 BC. It will be amazing!
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Rosemary
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Looks like a perfect trip!
Ed and Michele, I am so happy you enjoyed Istanbul as much as I did. You hit all the spots and saw everything I'd recommend. When I was in the cisterns, they had a small symphony quartet playing which made it even more surreal. Enjoy copodoccia. I didn't get there so I am looking forward to your impression. Happy New Year!!! Rosemary