Day 8 - sightseeing in Istanbul including Archaeological Museum

I just put this in for Hannah.
Even mosques have grandfather clocks. 

 A day of sightseeing and more sightseeing. Finally got to see some of the big tourist sites.  Mal left for the conference early again. 

Mal has booked us a flat which is just up the road from the main square. Its one tram, train and funicular from here to his conference site, but just a 50 metre walk to the centre of my sightseeing activities. I appreciate that because i am not used to sightseeing and foreign cities, especially alone. 

Today I explored to area where we are staying, which is called Sultanahmet. (that is Sultan Ahmet)  I had a Pocket Guide tour ap to follow which was great, most of the time, except really hard to concentrate when people kept trying to sell me Bosphorus tours and carpets. Maybe I should go and have a Turkish bath to get some peace.

First stop, the Basilica Cistern. The history of this place is amazing. You can check it out on Wikipedia. Among other things, it used to be a garden, and the water source for the Palace. Today its an underground surprise, with a little water in it, and spectacular columns, plus a few medusa heads at various angles.

I went inside the blue mosque. Again, amazing architecture, mosaics, crowds of people. Very big.

Outside the mosque is the hippodrome where they used to , among other things, have chariot races. There is an odd headless snake statue there. I found its head later in the Arcahaeological museum.

Serpentine Column in Hippodrome

Bronze serpent head

The walking tour then took me out to see some of suburb (I remembered some of it from where I was lost yesterday) where there were smaller although still spectacular, mosques, and museums. Maybe I will go back to the mosaic museum and see inside. Maybe also the Museum of Islamic art and craft. It sounds excellent.  I will try to come back to it another day. At one stage there was a view of the sea in the distance.  

I also discovered a walled café with great historical value, once a theological school, unfortunately it was shut when Mal and I came back to eat there. 

A lovely looking spice shop in the carpet bazaar

 

The manager let me into the Hamam, Turkish bath house, so I could take a photo. It was beautiful. I think I will go there and have the full treatment.

Still haven’t managed to get into the Aya Sofya (Haghia Sophia)- maybe Friday. SO many people. 

This is for Chris. You just never know what you will see here. 

Tiled Kiosk (in the Archaelogical Museum) 

 In the afternoon, ate at a restaurant where you could watch ladies cooking goromeler  in the front of the window. We had some and it was really yummy. More Turkish coffee, of course. I have not bought the makings of Turkish coffee (for a whole $7) so you can all have some when we get home. J

Sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. 

Then we went up to the Archaelogical museum, on the Seraglio point, just next to the Topkapi palace, for a real treat of old stuff. See the pictures. We just wandered around taking it all in. The best thing there is Alexander the Great’s sarcophagus. Amazing. Again, this took me back to the HSC Ancient History syllabus a  few years ago. 

We were especially pleased to see some mosaics from Nebukadnezzar's Ishtar gate, not just becuase its in the bible, but because we saw some more enormous bits of in East Berlin during our 1990 trip there. Very surreal. 

Another sarcophagus

Mosaics from Ishtar Gate, Nebucadnezzar's palace, Babylon. 

Really really old bowl 

Weights for Talents and Shekels. 

 Mal hasn't had much chance to see the shopping areas, especially the Grand Bazaar, so we caught a taxis up to that area and looked around, buying some soccer scarves. Mal is disappointed that he won't get to see a game while we are in Istanbul, but we got a great deal on the scarves. :)

After this, we wandered out of the bazaar to the evening markets nearby. They are quite random and odd. Some seem like garage sale stalls. Mal tried to buy some work shoes, but it started to rain and all the stall holders had to quickly pack up their wares. What a dreadful way to make a living. Like many situations in Turkey, this one made us feel extremely fortunately for our Aussie way of life.

Everyone's favourite friend. 

 Tonight we walked up the street to a fish restaurant. The food was delicious - another lovely Turkish meal. Can't wait to do some turkish cooking when we get home.