After another breakfast with the breathtaking view of the skyline of old Istanbul, we walked to the hippodrome. Back in the days of the Roman emperors, it was a stadium hosting events such as chariot racing. Although it has not been excavated, so we do not see the seats nor are we at the original ground level, you can see the indentations and the general perimeter. Inside the perimeter are some monuments from those days, including an obelisk from Egypt. I’ll bet it stands 3 stories tall, and I saw no indications it had been cut and reassembled. How on earth did the ancients manage to move it, intact, from Egypt to Constantinople?
Turning our attention from the hippodrome, we walked across the street to visit the Blue Mosque, the most beautiful mosque we saw. Grace and symmetry best describe the exterior of this structure. Inside are walls of white tiles with beautiful blue designs. Still used as a mosque, it has soft carpets and restored ornate woodwork inside. Perhaps because it is smaller than the Hagia Sophia, its 200 + windows seem to allow more light into it than the 1000 + windows do for the Hagia Sophia. It seemed lighter here and more reverential. But, it is still used as a mosque, so that could account for the reverential atmosphere.
We drove to another part of old Istanbul to visit another mosque, the Rüstem Pasha Mosque, known for its beautiful İznik tiles with floral and geometric designs. It, too, is still used for prayer and worship, and the women in our group were asked to cover our heads during our visit.
We walked through narrow, winding streets filled with shops and vendors to the Spice Market, opposite the ferries. Our guide took us to her favorite candy shop where we were treated to samples of apple and jasmine tea and various kinds of Turkish delight. Of course, I had to buy some of each to bring home to Kevin! While the group waited on the last of us to finish her purchases, I walked to a nearby shop with scarves. I was there only briefly, but when I left, the group was gone from the front of the candy shop! We had been given a meeting place and time before we entered the Spice Market, but since we had stayed together at the candy shop, I had assumed we would stay together the whole time. I was a little concerned to see no one I knew, so I walked out of the Spice Market to the square—the meeting place. Although it was 15 minutes early, I thought our guide would be there. She wasn’t. Neither was anyone else from our group. The square was a busy place—people walking by, but no one seemed to realize I was a panicked foreigner! As I waited, I got more and more concerned. Before going into the Spice Market, our guide had pointed at a building and said that was where we would eat lunch. I wondered if they had all gone there already. Did they know I was “missing?” I did not know which building she had meant when she had talked about lunch—there was more than one building in the direction she had pointed. I could not even get a taxi to the hotel as I could not remember the hotel name! Now, don’t laugh, but I remembered a book I read to the girls when they were little—Ernie Gets Lost. It’s about staying in one place when you get lost, so that you can be found. I kept thinking of how Ernie almost wasn’t found because he did not stay in one place but wandered around the department store. Finally, at 12:05—5 minutes after our meeting time, I saw 3 of my group emerge from the Spice Market! Within the next 10 minutes, everyone else joined us. The group had disbanded about the time I had gone to the scarf shop, and now they were all rendezvousing at the given place. I think I have some empathy now for people who visit the US and don’t know English well. It can be frightening to be unable to communicate and to think you are lost.
Lunch was eaten atop a nearby hotel which commanded a great view of the Bosphorous. Again we had a multi-course meal. Today, the dessert was assorted fruit (good thing) and Turkish coffee—very strong, but sweet.
Next we visited the The Church of St. Savior in Chora (Kariye Müzesi), a beautiful Byzantine church, before being converted to a mosque. It has been restored and serves as a museum. The ceilings in the halls and the rooms are filled with beautiful, detailed, gold-inlaid mosaics depicting mostly New Testament stories. There is one area in which the mosaics were never finished, and the walls are frescoes of what would have been filled in. In my opinion, the best way to have seen this museum would have been to spend the night here, looking up at the ceilings from a sleeping bag, moving your bag a little every 30 minutes or so. There is just so much to view and ponder here.
We then drove to the Greek Patriarchate—a Greek Orthodox church. A wedding had just ended, and the bride and groom were greeting guests in the courtyard. We were allowed to enter the church anyway. It has a wall filled with gold-framed portraits of saints and relics in gilt boxes. During our visit, a service began—canting, singing, incense, and movement characterized the service. Our guide beckoned us to leave before it was over.
On our own for supper again tonight, I dined with a different group from last night. We found an indoor restaurant where we had lots of fresh bread while we waited for our entrees and complimentary apple tea at the end of the meal. We returned to the hotel to pack, as tomorrow we hit the road—heading towards our first ruins.
More pictures of this day in Istanbul are here.
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