I had never really had any burning desire to go to Istanbul, so I can't really say how I landed on Turkey but I am SO glad I did. Istanbul is the farthest East that I can go from the Bologna airport, within reason, just a quick 2.5 hour flight with Turkish Airlines. With everything going on in the news about the Malaysian Airline flight, to say that I was nervous to get on a non-American flight is an understatement. Of course, it didn't help that the night before I was scheduled to fly I read every article on the internet about the flight investigation...super smart. I had also decided to keep my weekend getaway a secret from my mom to avoid giving her a mild stroke, however I caved and confessed Friday before I left...and yes, at 26 years old, I still can't keep little white lies from my mom - pathetic. Anyways, Turkish airlines is amazing. Great food, free booze, roomy seats, nice people, and bonus safe flight!
So I arrived in Turkey late afternoon Friday and when I got off the plane I realized how unprepared I was for the trip. I didn't know some key things like what the Turkish currency is (Turkish Lira, fyi), how to say please/thank you, and where my hotel was...I instructed the taxi to take me to the wrong place and after arguing for a good 15 minutes, I shamefully realized it was my mistake.
After getting settled in the correct place, I headed to Taksim Square which is where dinner at a nice restaurant called 360 came highly recommended. In the cab on the way there, the driver kept explaining something to me about Taksim and after about 15 minutes of back and forth I realized that he was saying that Taksim is where are the local riots are – awesome, I would have been just fine not knowing that fun fact. Luckily, last Friday there were no angry crowds, and I was about to walk all around Taksim without any problems at all. After a mouthwatering meal, I walked around the streets a bit and my fair share of the local flavor at the pubs (Efes and Raki), but I skipped out on the street vendor mussels, street-side raw seafood just didn’t sound right to me.
Stairs up to 360
Riot-free Taksim Square
Before I start babbling too much about what I did all weekend, I need to touch on the history of Istanbul for all us non-history buffs. I know I was much more concerned with what Old Navy t-shirt I was going to wear to middle school and if it would match the color I had chosen for the rubber bands on my braces that week than the Ottoman Empire, for proof see photo below...
yikes.
Pre-4th Century: Byzantium – founded by the Greeks
o Hippodrome built in 203…that’s 1811 years ago people!
4th – 15th Century: Constantinople – Constantine relocated the Eastern Roman Empire to Byzantium and renames the city Constantinople
o Lots of things happened here… Theodsian Walls, Basilica Cistern, Hagia Sophia, and LOTS of sieges of the city
o The end of the 15th century was CRAZY, this was the mark of the beginning of the fall of Christianity and the rise of Muslim rule
15th – 19th Century: Ottoman Empire
o City was taken over by Ottoman forces and fell under Sultan rule…Topkapi Palace, Grand Bazaar, several new mosques
o Hagia Sophia was converted from a Christian church to a mosque, more details to come…
20th Century: Fall of Ottoman Empire…Istanbul
o World War I, Republic of Turkey, abolishment of the caliphate (Sultan Rule)
21st Century: Population EXPLODES
o 2.3 million in 1965 to 10 million in 2000…now somewhere between 14 and 16 million.
The next morning I set out for the old city to hit the obvious tourist spots, still not really knowing what to expect. I started at the Hippodrome in Sultanahmet Square, which was the center of the old city. The Hippodrome is a U-shaped area where the chariots raced in Byzantine and Roman times. There are three significant structures that still stand in this area, which is crazy because the original floor of the Hippodrome is about 5 meters lower than the current surface. The three structures – Walled (aka Constantine) Obelisk, Serpentine Column, and Egyptian Obelisk – were placed in a line in the center of the Hippodrome, all with different stories. The oldest of the three is the Egyptian Obelisk, which was “custom ordered” by a Roman emperor to be made of pink granite and shipped from Egypt sometime in the 4th century. It arrived in Sultanahmet and sat at the corner of the Hippodrome for 10 years before it was erected in 390. The most amazing part about this is that the granite looks brand new. The Serpentine Column was erected in 479 under Greek rule and was originally three snakes intertwined. The heads of the snakes were later removed since snakes are representation of the devil. It’s unknown when the Walled Obelisk was constructed, but sometime before the 10th century. It was originally covered in bronze, but was stripped off during the siege of the Fourth Crusaders. Seriously old stuff…
Egyptian Obelisk
Walled Obelisk
Serpentine Column
Next on the list was the Blue Mosque, aka Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Driving into the city you see massive mosques all over the place, and they all looked pretty magnificent to me so I wasn’t really sure what was so special about the Blue Mosque. I’ve learned of a few things that make the Blue Mosque significant, and I’m sure my Muslim friends could probably educate me on several more; but this is what I’ve gathered. This mosque wasn’t designed by the famous Sinan, but by one of his students, and it was ordered by Sultan Ahmet who became Sultan at only 14. There are 6 minarets on the mosque, which was rather controversial at the time because 4 was the common maximum. Minarets are the towers you see that were used to mark the Call to Prayer. People used to climb up into the minarets to begin the call, so the more minarets you had the louder the call, so Sultan Ahmet’s mosque by default had the furthest reaching call. (Now there are speakers mounted that echo the call). The interior is decorated with more than 20,000 handmade tiles and 200 stained glass windows, and none of my pictures do this beautiful interior any justice – it’s truly breathtaking.
View of the Blue Mosque from the courtyard
These columns were MASSIVE
On to the Hagia Sophia, which means “Holy Wisdom,” my FAVORITE part of the weekend. This single structure illustrates the history of the city, and is symbolic in more ways than any of us will ever know. Bear with me here, there is a lot to explain about this one. The first church that was constructed where the Hagia Sophia stands today, somewhere between 340 and 360, was actually two wooden churches – the Great Church and the Hagia Eirene which was built for use while the Great Church was being completed. At the time, it was said to be the largest church in the world, but was burned during a riot in 404 (Hagia Eirene was not burned, only Hagia Sophia). The church was rebuilt with the use of more stone for protection in 415, however burned again in 532. There are ruins of the second Hagia Sophia around the entrance to the building and a few illustrations of how the second structure may have appeared, which was more representative of the Roman architecture – archways and columns. Emperor Justinian decided to go for a different look and ordered the Hagia Sophia to be rebuilt as a massive dome structure, and a little less than 6 years later, the structure that stands today was completed.
Now to the really interesting part…conversion of this intricate Christian church to a Mosque by the Ottomans. The details in the Hagia Sophia are amazing. There are images of Jesus, Virgin Mary, Joseph, and other key Christian figures were created with tiny mosaic tiles with rich colors to a background of gold tiles, made with gold leaf. Luckily, when the city was taken under Ottoman rule they respected the beauty of this Christian church and rather than destroying it, they simply made minor modifications. All the crosses were strategically converted into arrows or flowers, and all the Christian images covered in plaster and painted. The crazy thing is that the Ottomans clearly liked how the church was decorated, because as they painted over the plaster they kept the same colors and designs just excluded any Christian images.
The Hagia Sophia was transformed into a museum in 1935, which allows the public to truly see two worlds coming together in one building. They are constantly doing restoration work of the building and finding new images. The best part about it is that they are trying to restore pieces of the building to respect both cultures; peeling back plaster just enough to show mirror images in mosaic, maintaining the verses from the Quran and exposing Christian images...it's really a sight to see!
View of Hagia Sophia leaving the Blue Mosque
Traditional Ottoman band was serenading folks outside the Hagia Sophia. This guy was a crowd favorite.
Main entrance door...cross turned into an arrow
Beautiful.
The left half of the building was under restoration while I was there. I tried to keep the scaffolding out of my pictures...
View from the balcony. This is where the empress would sit while the emperor was down on the floor on his throne.
The emperor's throne would sit here on top of the different imported stones.
Visitors began taking the little mosaic pieces as their own souvenirs...
Example of some of the restoration work. CLICK to make the photo bigger, and you can tell that the top layer is painted plaster and the underneath the original mosaic tiles.
My favorite photo of the whole trip, so much history in one photo...
From the Hagia Sophia, I stopped for some substance at an adorable little hole in the wall for some Turkish cuisine. I went with Musakka, an eggplant dish with minced meat, and it was delicious! I learned that the Turkish and the Greeks still bicker over the origin of different foods (baklava, kebabs, etc) but one that the Turks will not let go is yogurt. They are very passionate about the fact that yogurt originated in Turkey, and most actually make their own on a weekly basis. They have a milk man who comes to their house and delivers milk to make new batches of yogurt. The best part is that the way they make it is just take a spoonful of the current bowl, and mix it into the new milk. So technically, you could be eating yogurt that is year and years old…think about it…
Next stop was Topkapi Palace which was the home to Ottoman Sultans for about 400 years of their rule, and is now full of some pretty unbelievable artifacts, not to mention gorgeous views of the Bosphorus Strait. So this place is massive, over 7 million square-feet, and kind of overwhelming especially after already conquering two mosques and the Hippodrome, but I continued onward. The grounds are surrounded by walls and the Borphorus on the edge of the peninsula. You first enter the main gate, the Imperial Gate, into the first of four courtyards. As you continued to walk into the palace, each courtyard subsequently gets smaller, more private, and in my opinion more beautiful. All the buildings had a specific purpose and were extravagantly decorated, again pictures do not do it justice. My favorite room of the tour was one of the rooms that displayed the different Sultan's treasures. The one piece that left me speechless was the rod of Moses. That's right, as in the piece of wood that parted the Red Sea. It was everything I had not to stop all the people around me and say something to the tune of "I'm sorry, whaaaaat??" I kept it together, and calmly walked to the next piece that happened to be the sword of David. Yep, the one that chopped off Goliath's head. Did I mention that I was in no way prepared for what I would see on this trip??
I'm not really sure if I wasn't allowed to take photos, or if I was just in such awe that I forgot to capture every single piece but sadly I don't have too many to share. I do know that there were no photos allowed in the treasures rooms because you better believe that I would have snapped one of that rod, or the 86-carat diamond, no big deal...
One of the doors into one of the buildings...
Entrance into the second courtyard, I think...
Bosphorus Bridge
I had dinner Saturday night at a place called Reina, which was also highly recommended for it's view of the Bosphorus Bridge, and it did not disappoint...
I didn’t have too much time on Sunday to explore, and my top priority was the Grand Bazaar – which, of course, is closed on Sunday. Luckily, the Spice Bazaar is open 7 days a week. I can’t imagine the magnitude of the Grand Bazaar because the Spice Bazaar was pretty overwhelming for a silly white girl on her first trip East. I pretty much wanted to buy everything, but was sidetracked with how many things there are to look at. The one thing that I wanted the most were some of the lamps they have, which I can guarantee would be broken before I get home in a few weeks, so sadly I passed...
Walking into the Bazaar
Turkish Delights
Spices and teas everywhere you look
I want a house full of these lamps
I feel like I only grazed the surface of this beautiful city, but I walked away with so much appreciation for the change that the city has endured. I am blown away by how much history I was able to see and experience, and so incredibly grateful for this beautiful life.
Until next week, xoxo...
Unbelievable! Your adventures really do teach me so much!
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