Istanbul not Constantinople

Well this blog was short lived for our last trip, but i'm hoping to keep it more up to date for this one.

Yesterday we flew to Istanbul. It was quite a long journey. Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur to Dubai, and then finally Dubai to Istanbul. All in all that was about 20 hours air time, plus stop overs, plus time to get to the airport and needing to be there 3 hours before. Let's just say we were absolutely wrecked by the time we reached our hotel room.

The drive to the hotel was interesting. I don't think there are many road rules here in Turkey other than the bigger the vehicle, the more right of way you have. Lanes don't seem to exist and drivers are not afraid to butt up against cars in front, or behind for that matter.

Today we started our 12 day tour of Turkey with a walking tour of Istanbul. This is quite an amazing city, very beautiful in parts, a bit run down in others. But it definitely has the European charm of other cities I've visited.

Today's tour started with the Topkapi Palace. In there we saw exhibitions of jewellery, medallions, armour, thrones and other items belonging to the Ottoman sultans. All of these items were very ornate, with intricate jewel decorations.

After the Topkapi Palace we went to the Blue Mosque. This is the first mosque I have ever been in. It is quite beautiful and very different to the many churches I have seen. The patterned walls are very intricate.

After the Blue Mosque, we went to a restaurant for lunch. The food was exquisite. The starters included couscous, potatoe salad, pasta salad, and a feta spring roll. The main course was lamb (like the sort you get in a kebab) with mash, something which I think was a different style of couscous, and salad. Then dessert was baclava. Needless to say my stomach was very satisfied when I walked out of the restaurant.

From lunch we then went to our final stop of the day with the tour, The Grand Bazaar. This is a very chaotic marketplace that sells quite a variety of items. We wandered through the markets for a while and then headed back to the hotel for a bit of a break.

Not wanting to spend the rest of the day in the hotel, we then flicked through our trusty Lonely Planet guide (Thanks Phil and Kim :-) ) and discovered that the Basilica Cistern was nearby and open till late afternoon. The Cistern is a large underground cavern where water is collected. It contains many columns with various styled capitols. There are also two large Heads of Medusa at the bottom of two of the columns. No one seems to know the origin of these Medusa heads. Strangely one of the heads is upside down, and the other is on it's side.

After the cistern, Andrew and I wandered the streets of Istanbul, just taking in the atmosphere (and an ice-cream :-) ), and then came back to the hotel to prepare for dinner.

Speaking of the hotel, the place we are staying in whilst in Istanbul is quite nice. The beds are a dream, there is free wifi (hence the blog) and the breakfast plentiful and delicious.


Update: We have just arrived back at the hotel from dinner. Not very hungry as our stomachs are still adjusting to the timezone, we decided to try the little snack place just down the road from our hotel. We went up to the menu board and decided we were happy to try something there. Realising that we were going to stay, one of the shopkeepers waved us to a table...accross the road...in the middle of an intersection... next to a traffic island.

It was the most bizarre experience, sitting in the middle of the road eating our dinner. There were a few times when a mini bus was reversing next to us that I thought we were goners for sure. Thankfully we were able to eat our dinner without being hit.

Tomorrow, Hagia Sofia and Cannakale.