Automobile horns we don’t much use in Canada, but they do in Turkey. It sounds, to start with, as though there are many angry drivers, but if you watch and listen while near the streets, you can tell there is a lot more communication happening than anger. The streets are so narrow often vehicles would just honk to warn a pedestrian. Other times it was a request to move over or get out of the way, or even a warning that backing up was required. And of course there were the horns blaring when drivers were just plain annoyed at having to wait!

The feral cats yowling at night I could probably not be unhappy to lose. Sometimes they sounded hungry, and their sound was much more like a baby crying then, or so I guess! Other times it was ‘singing at the moon’ time and that was more funny than annoying.

People talking in at least five languages, vendors calling out their wares, the chatter of tires on cobblestone streets, “excuse me sir where are you from? Interested in a carpet?”, the deep fog horn, and a myriad of other sounds of a city of 13 million are all sounds we will remember, even without the recording. Istanbul is truly a megacity! And with that we will show you photos of our last wander around on the most glorious, and only blue sky day here.

After catching the train back to our neighbourhood, we amble up a street to the entrance of Topkapi Palace. There we pay triple what it cost to go into Yedikule Hisari, but we do get to view the most sparkling collection of the Imperial Treasury. Lovely craftsmanship, much from hundreds of years ago. No photography allowed so you will have to take my word on the quality and quatity. Actually, Lawrie sat out the entire last room, I suspect he was bored! We also saw the exhibit of many Sultan’s kaftans. The kaftans were really quite simple in design with narrowly woven silk fabric making up the garment. The fabric covered button and closures were also simply done but several had copious numbers – like a run of 16 on each sleeve and three times that down the front opening. Photos would have been nice. The only photos allowed were outside. Which I will get to, but first a bit of history about this pretty interesting palace.

Home of the Ottoman sultans for nearly 400 years, Topkapi Sarayi (“Palace of the Cannon Gate”) was the seraglio, the heart of the vast Ottoman Empire, ruled by the monarch who lived in Topkapi’s hundreds of rooms with hundreds of concubines, children, and white and black servants. There were originally around 700-800 residents of the Palace at the beginning, but during the centuries it dramatically raised to 5,000 during normal days and 10,000 during festivals, approximately. Amongst these, the Janissaries were the biggest part of the population who were based within the first courtyard of the palace. The palace became the largest palace in the world, a city within a city. The walls surrounding it were about 5 kilometers (around 3 miles) long. The palace having around 700,000 m2 of area during the foundation years, it currently has only 80,000 m2 of area because of building constructions in its grounds towards the end.

During the 400 hundred years of reign at Topkapi, each sultan added a different section or hall to the palace, depending on his taste or on the needs of the time. Therefore the palace is formed by a maze of buildings centered around a series of courtyards protected by different gates. Its architecture is predominantly Middle Eastern in character. The initial construction was Cinili Mansion, a tiled kiosk finished in 1472, and the main gate (Bab-i Humayun in Arabic or the Imperial Gate) facing Sultanahmet square and Hagia Sophia church, and the Palace ramparts at the second gate (Bab-us Selam or the Gate of Salutation) were completed in 1478. A third gate, Bab-us Saade or the Felicity Gate, separates the core and most important parts of the palace from other sections, such as the Treasury for example.

Speaking of old, we have been taking photos of the Hagia Sophia ever since we got here. We have attempted to visit several other times but found the line up to get in very daunting and so changed our minds. Today, however, we managed to not wait for any length of time, but came in with two large school groups. The history here is pretty astounding to say the least. Wikipedia contains the following information:

From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, Hagia Sophia served as the cathedral of Constantinople. The current building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and was the third Church of the Holy Wisdom to occupy the site, the previous two having both been destroyed by rioters. It was designed by the Greek scientists Isidore of Miletus, a physicist, and Anthemius of Tralles, a mathematician. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II, who subsequently ordered the building converted into a mosque. The bells, altar, iconostasis, and sacrificial vessels were removed and many of the mosaics were plastered over. Islamic features — such as the mihrab, minbar, and four minarets — were added while in the possession of the Ottomans. It remained a mosque until 1931 when it was closed to the public for four years. It was re-opened in 1935 as a museum by the Republic of Turkey.

This business of plastering over the mosaics, or most of them, makes for a rather bizarre and mixed up interior decor. Coming in from outside with ‘mosque’ firmly seated in your brain (it does have four minarets and many domes) to be faced with many ‘church’ images is confusing to say the least. But getting to know the history a bit leaves one in awe of it all. Very worth the time and crowd dodging to see.

So next we go to see the other famous edifice on the other side of the square, The Blue Mosque or Sultan Ahmed Mosque as it is properly known. More often than not it is called the Blue Mosque because of the preponderance of blue tiles used to decorate the interior surfaces. I was somewhat disappointed really, expected it to be more blue and less regular. Compared to the Hagia Sofia it seemed sterile. So it is a thousand years newer and has a less dramatic history, but it is beautiful none-the-less, and no matter my reaction. The other really disconcerting thing about going to visit this Mosque is that it is a place of worship and in the Islamic faith you may want to go to the Mosque to pray a number of times each day. So all these tourists wanting to traipse in and around the Mosque with little regard for the main function of it, with signs everywhere directing tourists what to do and not do, just seems disrespectful. I would have felt more comfortable if there were a very few set hours in a day when tourists could go to see this lovely place without feeling intrusive. Maybe this is just me wishing for some quiet and reverence in one of God’s holy places. So here are my images of The Blue Mosque:

When we arrived in Edirne, we attempted to follow the directions we had, but came up feeling quite lost. So back to the bus company’s office to see if we could find some help. We first bought our ticket back to Istanbul and then asked for some help with directions. The fellow looked at our slip of paper with the address and the title “House of Bahá’u’lláh” and recognized the street name first, then noticed Bahá’u’lláh’s name and immediately asks if we were Baha’is! He has a quick conversation with another person in the office and then gets out of his seat and starts to the door all the while making a telephone call. A quick conversation ensues and we find ourselves following our new friend down the street next to the office. Within two minutes he is knocking at the door of the caretaker’s house! We guess the telephone call was to the caretaker as they are obviously well acquainted with each other. Sometimes it really is a good thing to ask for help!

Our visit to the House of Bahá’u’lláh in Edirne is really the last part of our pilgrimage. This is the last place he lived before being exiled to Akka in Israel. Visiting these places in reverse order may seem a little backwards, but it really isn’t an issue.

After we are finished our visit here, we trundle down the street to the Selimiye Mosque. There we take a very many photographs, find lunch, attempt to get warm, visit a grocery store and then return to the bus station for the return to Istanbul. It has been a lovely day except for the very cold temperatures. You may notice a bit of white stuff … that is snow!

Well then, maybe we should wander down to the information centre Lawrie had noticed near the Spice Market and find out what we need to know about getting to the main bus station. Okay, off we go, find the information centre and get given a nice little folding diagram of the tramways, metros, and trains that service Istanbul. Also a very brief explanation of how to get to the ‘otogard’. Fine, now what? Well, while we are in the neighbourhood of the Spice Market, why don’t we do a bit of shopping? So we do.

It is an amusing place to spend time, or at least until the crowds or the cold dictate a different activity is in order. As we have some more daylight hours and tickets on the tramway and the metro are really inexpensive, we decide to go for a ride and see where the ‘otogard’ is and what kind of time is required. So we do and it is easy and we expect that tomorrow we should manage to get a bus to Edirne without too much difficulty. Not an extremely productive day for tourists, but really we feel like travellers and enjoy our interactions with people who live here and wish to help those who don’t.

For us, this find was far more important and spiritual than visiting all the grand mosques in Istanbul. We spent the best part of an hour in meditation and prayer, thanked the caretaker and quietly resumed our day. Lawrie found us many deserted streets to walk. I found us a great hole-in-the wall place to eat.

Along the way home we manage to find the famous aqueduct. Wikipedia says “The Valens Aqueduct is a Roman aqueduct which was the major water-providing system of the Eastern Roman capital of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey). Completed by Roman Emperor Valens in the late 4th century AD, it was restored by several Ottoman Sultans, and is one of the most important landmarks of the city. The aqueduct stands in Istanbul, in the quarter of Fatih, and spans the valley between the hills occupied today by the Istanbul University and the Fatih Mosque. The surviving section is 921 meters long, about 50 meters less than the original length. The Atatürk Bulvari passes under its arches.” The terminus is the Basilica Cistern and that means water for Topkapi Palace.

We returned to the Grand Bazaar to do some serious shopping and then came back to our hotel to tea and cookies and the Saskatchewan/Canada curling game replayed on the laptop a day late. Yeah Saskatchewan!!! I think we will plan to visit Edirne and complete our pilgrimage for 2011 on Wednesday.

Maybe tomorrow we will visit some of those grand mosques, Bahá’u’lláh did after all go to pray in them!

The other thing that was interesting with this visit was the building the exhibit was in. The building reputedly stands on the site of a pre-Christian temple. It ranks, in fact, as the first church built in Constantinople. Roman emperor Constantine I commissioned the first Hagia Irene church in the 4th century. From May to July 381 the First Council of Constantinople took place in the church. It was burned down during the Nike revolt in 532. Emperor Justinian I had the church restored in 548. It served as the church of the Patriarchate before Hagia Sophia was completed in 537.

Our next visit was in fact three more museums (all for the price of one) and to describe what we found there has us both stumped, as did the museums! If the photos intrigue you, follow this link! Istanbul Archaeology Museums

Today was a great day to spend at the Spice Market, along the way however, we managed to buy a Turkish carpet. We started just looking yesterday, but didn’t see one we loved. Well, today we did. Bigger than we thought yesterday, but will be a lovely addition to our home. Buying a carpet here is almost mandatory, they make thousands every year from all silk to silk on cotton, wool on cotton and wool on wool, in more patterns than you can imagine. They know the names of the patterns and whether it is an old carpet (more valuable often) or a new one from the colours used. We could go on at length, but will stop here by saying don’t visit Turkey unless you want to buy a carpet!

So that done, we returned to our hotel to drop this tidy little package off, and then set out again for the Spice Market. This time we were sidetracked with a visit to the Basilica Cistern. Tom Brosnahan writes the following:

Beneath Istanbul lie hundreds of gloomy Byzantine cisterns. They’re left from the days when Istanbul was Constantinople. The grandest of all is the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sarniç), so called because it lay beneath the Stoa Basilica, a grand Byzantine public square. It’s also called the Sunken Palace Cistern (Yerebatan Saray Sarniçi) because that’s what it looks like. Whatever you call it, it’s impressive because of its size, measuring 138 meters long and 64.6 meters wide, covering nearly 1000 square meters (2.4 acres); its capacity (80,000 cubic meters—over 21 million US gallons) and its 336 marble columns. Built by Justinian after 532, the Basilica Cistern stored water for the Great Palace and nearby buildings. Lost to memory, it was rediscovered by Petrus Gyllius, who came to Constantinople in search of Byzantine monuments. Gyllius, who noticed that local people got their water by lowering buckets through holes in the floors of their houses, found an entrance and thus put it back on the map.”

We were very impressed and enjoyed our time underground.

Then we were off to the Spice Market, which by the way is actually called the Egyptian Market … though why we can’t say. This time we only stopped for photos and a couple map checks.

We never did buy any spices, but we did find some Turkish Delight and some hazelnuts too. It was teeming with people today as it is Saturday, so we called it quits fairly soon with plans to return midweek.

Had our best meal here at a hole in the wall, and very good price too! Then off through the rain to our hotel with only a couple more stops for photos.

We walk past and then double back to a Free Admission sign and walk in. It is the Mausoleum of Sultan Ahmed I (and his relatives). Outside it looks like a Mosque without a minaret, inside it looks like a tomb. I couldn’t bring myself to take photos of the coffins, but you may see that on Wikipedia if you want.

After this brief unexpected visit, we are back to finding the bazaar and we would both say that isn’t difficult, what with it taking up so many streets!

I don’t think we mentioned all the cats there were in Israel. They are feral cats and were everywhere. Well they’re all over the place in Istanbul as well. We didn’t do much this first full day. Lynn wakes up with a nasty cold. So we have a late breakfast, work on L2O2, have a nap in the afternoon, then a quick stroll around, just to stretch the legs and get a feel for the place.