Istanbul is certainly the most culturally different big city I've been so far. The crowds and traffic, exotic smells and tastes and the constant honking and regular islamic prayer on loudspeaker remind me of Egypt, but Turkey, and Istanbul in general has a lot more modern influence and progressive views. I was told by someboy earlier in my travels that Istanbul has more females enrolled in medical school than males - which gives an inidication of how different they are to some of the Muslim stereotypes.
I headed across the river to the old city for the day, since it's where much of the great architecture, history and the famous bazaars are. My initial destination was the Grand Bazaar, which is a massive, massive shoppng area. Before I got there I also came across the spice bazaar. I'm thinking of visiting the Grand Bazaar again today since all I really did was a quick walkthrough yesterday. I forget all the exact details on it, but it has 4400 shops in the building(s), so that gives a rough idea. I also explored some of the regular street shops selling all manner of things.
Next I visited some of the great buildings in the area to get all my admission fees for things out of the way. I did Hagia Sophia first, which is most impressive just for its history. The government, to their credit, made it into a museum (from its last incarnation as a mosque), preserving both its Christian and Muslim art and history.
Next I crossed through the park to the nearby Sultan Ahmed Mosque (or Blue Mosque). It was closed for prayer for another hour so I had a snack and lounged around before visiting it.
Finally I went to the Topkapi Palace grounds, which was the residence of the Ottoman Sultans for hundreds of years. I randomly ran into the people I had gone out for dinner with the night before and we checked out the palace together. Many of the small buildings on the grounds had been converted to small museums that included ornate items from the treasury encrusted in gold and gems; fancy swords (including a crazy 8-10 foot Hungarian sword), armor and guns; elaborate clocks and a museum of items from the harem. You can also go through the harem buildings which have elaborate tiled designs and stained glass windows.
After all that I crossed back over to the side of the river my hostel is on and revisited the busy commercial street I walked down my first day to get to the hostel. It is a much more modern shopping district, with lots of brand name clothing shops and lots of good places to eat. I did a bit of a grazing dinner, stopping at different places along the way to grab bits of food from different places since it's so cheap and just eating as I walked.
All that was a lot of walking for the day and I planned to just hang around for an early night. That plan fell apart when I started talking to some new people in my room from germany and australia who were going out to celebrate one of their birthdays, and I got talked into coming along. We met up with a few others and headed out to buy some drinks and drink beneath Galata Tower.
There are better pictures floating around, but after all the misadventures with my camera I wasn't willing to entrust my brand new one to not very sober people to take pictures with me. Not planning anything too exciting today. Just taking it wasy and wandering around until meeting the people for my tour this evening.
1 comment:
I would love that spice market, Jess too! And the history, architecture, art--so much to take in. Another destination to add to my growing list.
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