Advertisement
Published: October 25th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Entrance to the Grand Bazaar
There are over 4,000 shops in the Bazaar. MAre did a great job bargaining. Istanbul, Turkey ---- October 23, 2010
Istanbul means traffic, history, east meets west, peddlers and bargaining. The population of Istanbul is estimated to be 15 million or half of Canada’s population cramped into one sprawling city, hampered with ancient narrow one direction twisting streets. To put this into perspective you haven’t seen grid-lock until you have seen Istanbul. There are only 2 bridges over the Bosphorus separating the Asian side from the European side of Istanbul. Total credit has to be given to our bus drivers who navigated the narrow streets squeezing by seeming less than an inch from double parked cars. When we arrived our tour guide welcomed us to Istanbul and said that the drive to our hotel would take between 1 to 5 hours depending on traffic. He was only partially kidding.
Our hotel was the Crown Plaza, Old City a restore structure that is composed of 4 buildings 4 stories high. Mare and I were on the 4th floor, the elevator only went to the 3rd floor then we climbed some stairs to find that our room was formerly part of the attic with sloping ceilings and windows that were floor to below waist high,
Blue Mosque
The back of the Blue Mosque is in the background as long as the bed is comfortable and we have our own bathroom Mare and I are fine.
After settling into the hotel we were off to a diner in the fishermen’s market; fine but one has to realize that both Mare and I are not the greatest fish eaters particularly when the whole fish is delivered with the fish eyes looking at you as you are about to slice into the fish. Mare solved this by draping a napkin over the fishes head. My hearing and my musical ability is far below par, but I have to congratulate the restaurant that evening for a performance that was so far into the noise category that under no circumstances could it be classified as music. The next day we were off to the Blue Mosque. The attached pictures provide some perspective on this wonderful building. Across from the Blue Mosque is the church of St. Sophia now a museum that is being restored back to its original state. Originally it was the largest Christian Church in Constantinople converted to a Mosque when the Ottomans conquered the city but after Turkey became a Republic is now being resort to its original form.
Sultan's Palace
The shape of this tree attracted my attention Again I will let the pictures tell the story for me. No matter where you turn, there is evidence of history including Roman times. One of the main roads we travelled on passed between 2 huge pillars that supported an aqueduct that carried water to the city. Once here some of the water flowed into a huge Underground Cistern that was filled to the top of the pillars you will see in the accompanying pictures.
Early the next day we visited the Dolmabahce Palace constructed in the 18th century as a summer palace for the Sultan. This was followed by a cruise on the Bosphorus, which connects the Black Sea eventually with entry into the Atlantic Ocean, so you can well image how busy the straits are with ships coming and going. The straits must also be great for fishing, since along the sides of the water everywhere and on the bridges there were people with fishing rods plus numerous small boats on the water fishing. Eventually we made it to the Grand Bazaar which is one the largest covered markets in the world. Here we discovered Mare’s bargaining ability is truly impressive, she even bargained for a box
Sultan's Palace
These are the gates to the 2nd circle within the Sultan's Palace. There are 3 rings, the 1st being fairly open , the 2nd where the officials were and the 3rd being where the Sultan and his family resided. of tea. Neither of us is comfortable in large crowds so once we had made our purchases we decided to walk back to our hotel. It took us less than 10 minutes versus 1 hour for those that took the bus (Istanbul Traffic). A visit to a nightclub with belly-dancers finished off the evening.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0352s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
G. Henderson
non-member comment
Thank you very much for the pictures and dialog. I really enjoyed recieving them. George