We had another late start on our second full day in Istanbul. Lucky we don't have a tight schedule for our travels or anything! After loading up on bread at our complimentary hostel breakfast we set out for another full on day of sightseeing in the searing 34 degrees celsius heat.
Our first stop of the day was a visit to the Basilica Cistern or "Yerebatan Sarayı" as it's called in Turkish which means the "Sunken Palace".The Basilica Cistern is a huge cathedral sized ancient cistern that lies beneath Istanbul. Like the Hagia Sofia, it was built in the 6th century AD during the reign of Justinian of the Byzantine Empire. Of course, being a Byzantine construction, it couldn't be just purely functional and is also an astonishing fat of engineering. For the uninitiated, a cistern, at least one of this scale, is a large receptacle with a waterproof lining for holding and storing liquids, usually water. No, it's not just the thing on top of your toilet!
The Basilica Cistern gets it's Byzantine name from its location. It was originally built underneath a basilica (church). According to Wikipedia, some old texts claim that 7000 slaves were used to make the cistern. The Basilica was, and still is, absolutely massive covering an area of 9,800 square meters and with a maximum capacity of 80,000 cubic metres - that's a lot of water. The ceiling of the Basilica Cistern was supported by over 300 marble columns, in various different styles. Some were Ionic, some Doric and a few Corinthian, some plain and a few were engraved. Apparently this was because the builders recycled parts from older Roman ruins.
The Basilica Cistern was cool and echoing and only had a few feet of water lying at the bottom when we were there. The water was filled with strange fat carp-like grey fish.
After Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the 15th century, the cistern gradually became forgotten. Local people used to lower buckets from their houses into the ground and comer up with fresh water but they weren't sure why. People also started dumping a lot of rubbish and even corpses down there until it was rediscovered much more recently. It was looking beautiful when we visited, eerie and echoing and evocatively lit. It was wonderfully cool down there too so made a welcome escape from the heat above ground.
In the northwest corner of the cistern there were two Medusa heads set into columns. This one was upside down, the other was on it's side. Nobody really knows why they were there or why they were in such strange positions.
After the cistern, we decided to go to the Topkapi Palace Museum, one of the supposed "must-see" places. The Topkapi Palace was the main residence of the Ottoman Sultans during 400 years of their 600 plus year reign. It was built in 1459 on order of Sultan Mehmed II, the chap who conquered Byzantine Constantinople. The palace was huge and housed up to 4000 people at it's peak and contained bakeries, mosques, huge kitchens, a mint and a circumcision room. In 1924, after the break up of the Ottoman Empire, the palace became a museum of the imperial era.
By the time we got there it was roasting hot. Rowan queued up for a ticket in the heat while I hid in the cool shady museum shop and marvelled at the high prices therein! The entry price was pretty steep too - 25 lira each - nearly 10 British pounds! On top of that, to enter one of the main areas of the palace, the Harem, you had to pay another 15 lira! There were no leaflets in English left when we went there and no maps were available of the huge site whoch was annoying. However, if you rented an audio guide (headphones) for another 15 lira, you got a "free" map. You then had to pay another 10 lira to get the audio guide to work in the Harem - what a rip-off! We were not impressed. Still enough whinging about prices!
On our way to the Topkapi Palace we walked past the Istanbul Archaeological museum. They clearly had so many exhibits that they could afford to leave these ones lying around outside!
A guy dressed up in traditional Ottoman dress for the tourists' cameras.
The palace was pretty crowded. You entered the palace grounds through some very pretty gardens and the many rooms and halls were interesting but they got a bit samey after a while. They all had lovely ceilings of course though! We saw some displays of Ottoman kaftans including some huge ones that were big enough to fit 10 people inside! We also saw lots of bowls and cups and stuff encrusted with precious gems and diamonds. The most interesting display in my opinion was the one of all the cool old armour including some really long 15th century lances that looked excruciatingly painful and a viscous looking mace.
Entrance to the Topkapi Palace Museum.
The large and beautiful Gate of Felicity. This is the entrance to the Inner Court where the Sultan lived. Nobody could pass through this gate without the Sultan's permission.
The Conqueror's Pavilion, built by Sultan Mehmed II, is one of the oldest buildings in the palace.
The far end of the palace grounds give a lovely view of the Bosphorus Sea and the Asian side of Istanbul.
The golden gilded Iftar Pavilion and the blue tiled Baghdad Kiosk.
These were the palace kitchens with their many tall chimneys. They were so huge that they had their own street in the palace grounds.
We didn't bother with the Harem in the end as we were hot and tired and couldn't justify the extra money we' have to pay to get in. We went in search of a drink as we'df foolishly come in without one but the only thing we could find was a restaurant at the end of the palace grounds selling 10 lira cans of coke - that's more than 3 pounds! It was worse than the Tower of London for ripping visitors off and that's saying something!
We decided to head back to the hostel to get some respite from the heat before heading out in the late afternoon to see the famed Grand Bazaar. It was quite a nice oldish building but it was certainly not the ramshackle old world market we were expecting. It looked more like a British style old fashioned arcade, with smart new shops housed in a historic building.
More nice ceilings in the Grand Bazaar.
Some cool little guitars and Turkish instruments in a shop in the bazaar.
After wandering in the bazaar for a bit we headed outside and had a look at Beynitz Square which had a nice looking mosque and a grand gate to the university. As we were leaving, a load of guys were setting up small impromptu stalls on rugs selling everything from old clothes and knock-of watches to 1980's stereos and popcorn makers.
A rather blue tinged picture (think I set the white balance wrong) of Beynitz Square and the grand university gate.
Pretty mosque on the square.
We headed back to the Grand Bazaar and bought some Turkish Delight (called "lokum" in Turkish) from a small shop just outside the bazaar staffed by some funny guys who were trying to teach each other sales patter in English - "How can I help you?" not "What's your problem?" as one of the guys kept explaining to another. Then we made our way back to the hostel. On our way we were lucky enough to stumble across a free live Turkish music performance. The band were good and started with a male singer then ;later a woman cam pout and sung instead. They performed in a small stone auditorium and as we watched them a decent sized crowd mainly consisting of locals gathered to enjoy it and join in with the singing.
Turkish music performance in Sultanahmet near our hostel.
This guy in traditional looking dress was selling tea of cherry juice, not sure which, to the watching crowds from the large vessel on his back.
After the music performance we wandered back towards our hostel and spotted this guy selling traditional Ottoman sweets. I had to have one of course. There were several different brightly coloured sweet syrups and he took a small wooden stick and twirled each flavour syrup on. It was tasty but extremely sweet, a bit like a Wham bar.
We got back to our hostel as the sun was setting. Here you can see the German Fountain with the Blue Mosque behind it.
We ended up going back to the Meat House restaurant again that evening die to laziness and had some tasty boreki, pastry filled with cheese - my favourite ingredients!
No comments:
Post a Comment