Istanbul - October 29th

As today is our first full day in Istanbul we decide to get as many of the main sights in as possible.  So we take the tram to Sultanahmet, the Old City part of Istanbul.  This is where the Blue Mosque, the Aya Sofia, the Topkapi Palace, and the Grand Bazaar are, the main sights in Istanbul.  We first go to the Blue Mosque, via the Hippodrome, the old Roman section of town.  This is packed with tourists, and it doesn’t augur well for the rest of the day.  The queue for the Blue Mosque is quite long when we join, but as there is no entry fee, just shoe removal, it moves quite quick.  The interior of the Mosque is quite impressive though, if you could see through the crowds.

Next we go to Aya (Hagia) Sofia.  This is a large former Orthodox Church, that was converted to be a Mosque and also briefly a Catholic Church.  It had the largest interior of any building in the world from the 6^th century to the 16^th.  And it is really impressive.  It’s actually not as well restored as I thought it would be, but that only makes it feel more real.  When it was converted to a Mosque, rather than destroying the Christian icons, the Moslems covered them in plaster, actually preserving them, so there is a good mix of Islamic and Early Christina art, as well as some pagan influences, as the Romans built it on the site of former pagan temples.  Basically it is an amazing building, and was well worth the extra 25 euro we paid to get a guide for 45 minutes, and to skip the queue, which was also 45 minutes at least.

After that we headed for the Topkapi Palace, but when we got there the queue was so long we decided to leave it until tomorrow.  So after a quick lunch (a not very good Turkish pita pizza - pide) we go to the Basilica Cistern.  This is a large underground valut that was built by to provide water for the city.  It is pretty cool, literally as it is underground, but the lighting makes it seems quite spooky.  It really is big, and as it fell into disuse there are now loads of fish swimming around in it.  The highlight are pillars with Medusa heads on them, although the only thing that turned to stone were the tourists as we tried to take pictures around them.  Sometimes I hate my fellow tourists.

We then went to the Grand Bazaar, only to find it was closed, presumably because of the holiday.  So we walked the local streets, visiting a few mosques, and seeing how packed they were, until we got back to the Galata bridge.  Crossing this by foot we avoided the guys trying to drag us into restaurants until we got to the fish sandwich stalls.  They do a good mackerel sandwich here.

After the fish sandwich we found the Tunel, the second oldest underground railway in the world, after London, where we use it to climb back to Istiklal Cad.  We then walk along it, seeing it is even more packed than the night before, until we locate an Irish Pub to have the obligatory pint in.  I know why they call it an Irish pub, we pay Irish prices for our local beers.  Also like an Irish pub we have a kebab afterwards, although this one was better than Abrakababra, it’s not the best ever, so on that disappointing note the night ends.

(I know this is 600 words instead of my usual 400, but Aya Sofia was one of my 50 places to see before I die, so today gets a little extra).