2
Feb

Week 45: Istanbul

   Posted by: Rhona   in Turkey

We’ve spent the past week in Istanbul, being befriended by carpet salesmen, exploring historic mosques, drinking fresh orange juice, watching dervishes whirl, eating baklava, counting stray cats, buying souvenirs in the Grand Bazaar and dodging rain showers. It’s been a busy week. On our first night in the city we headed out to the weekly CouchSurfing meeting where we met lots of great people who gave us a list of culinary delights to taste and some great tips for sightseeing in Istanbul and Turkey. On our way home, as we walked between the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque, it snowed a wet, heavy snow.

Both Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque were, of course, on the “must see” list and both are incredible. Aya Sofya was originally built in 537AD by the Byzantine emperor Justinian. It was the world’s biggest Christian church until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottomans and its transformation into a mosque. Even today with all the technology available, the building is still incredible. The 55m high dome floats above mere mortals heads, and even the balcony soars up toward the ceiling. The Blue Mosque, more accurately named Sultan Ahmet Mosque after the sultan who commissioned it, was built between 1606 and 1616 to rival Aya Sofya. It doesn’t quite achieve that but it’s a pretty tough competition to win. The interior is a huge space covered in tens of thousands of blue tiles, hence the unofficial name of the structure.

Another popular sight is Topkapi Palace, the residence of Istanbul’s sultans from 1453 until the 19th century when they built separate palaces for themselves. The harem is an incredible complex and was home to the sultan, his mother, his children, his many concubines and the eunuchs who guarded them. Interestingly enough the girls/women in the harem were all foreigners as Islam forbade enslaving other Muslims. The same was true for the pages in the emperor’s court, who could aim for the position of Grand Vizer who was second in command after the sultan himself. The treasury houses an incredible collection of sparkly and ostentatious treasures which say more about the wealth and power of the sultans than the buildings of the palace itself. Among them is the Topkapi dagger, destined to be a gift to the Nadir Shah of Persia but was undelivered at the time of his death. Three enormous emeralds are set into the hilt and a whole lot of other sparkle makes sure they’re not the only thing catching your eye. We also saw the world’s 5th largest diamond, known as the spoon maker’s diamond because it was originally found on a rubbish dump and bought for three spoons. The cut stone is 86 carats and was first worn by Mehmet IV when he ascended the throne in 1648.

One of our days was spent wandering around some of the less touristy neighbourhoods. We’re staying in Sultanahmet which is the centre of the old Byzantine and Ottoman city and hence is now the centre of all things touristy. It’s a convenient base for the historic sites but it was nice to get out to see some of the more local areas. On our first day we were disappointed to see that the Grand Bazaar has pretty much been transformed into a large souvenir shop, with some allowances for seriously blingy jewellery and fake brand name goods. Walking briefly through the spice market we saw the same trend there, tourism seems to be big business here. Even in the low season there are plenty of big buses around. It’s easy to see why the city is so popular though, we’re still here a week later and our list of things to see and do never seems to get shorter.

In a single evening we managed to fit in whirling dervishes and a visit to a hamam (Turkish bath). The whirling dervishes are members of the Mevlevii Sufi order and their famous whirling is a form of meditation. For many of the tourists watching the ceremony the chanting and music preceding the whirling was too long. With the attention span of ADD afflicted kids they started fidgeting after 5 minutes of flute and drum music but finally the whirlers made their entrance. Wearing tall tan cylindrical hats that represent the tombstone of the ego they shed their black cloaks and started whirling (after some other ceremonies that had the kids twitching again). It was beautiful. There was such peace and serenity in their movements as they turned and moved around the circular “dancefloor” in the centre of the converted hamam. As they spun their right hands reached up toward the sky, symbolising the gifts they receive from God, and the left pointed downward symbolising their charity to those less fortunate.

Later in the night we visited a functioning hamam and had our first Turkish bath. It was an experience. We went for the soap massage option and got sudsed up by rather unattractive members of our respective genders. Men and women bathed separately which is just as well as there wasn’t a whole lot of clothing involved, though I was surprised to be given a pair of underpants to wear. Later, as I lay on my back getting a full body soap massage from a pendulous Turkish lady I was rather grateful for the humble covering those undies provided. There wasn’t much holding back on her part! Once I’d been rubbed all over by a complete stranger I was left to my own devices and spent the rest of my visit alternating between the heated stone slab in the middle of the room and cooling rinses from the taps lining the walls.

Today we avoided the pouring rain with visits to a few museums. The Istanbul Archaeological museum was incredible. It just kept going and going and going! Along with some of the incredible treasures in the Topkapi Palace it really drove home the fact that under the Ottoman sultans Istanbul was the capital of a far reaching empire. At its height the Ottomans controlled lands from Hungary to southern Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and west along the Mediterranean African coast to Morocco. One of the more impressive things we saw in the museum, before we got kicked out at closing time, was the marble sarcophagus of a king, found in present day Lebanon. It is covered in incredibly detailed carvings showing Alexander the Great and his army battling with the Persians, and was once brightly painted. Traces of the 4th century BC paint are still visible. Other interesting displays were an Egyptian sarcophagus reused by King Tabnit of Sidon in the 5th century BC and a sarcophagus with a classical Greek style face adorned with an Egyptian pharaoh’s beard from around 465BC.

As we’re still adding to our “to do” list we’ve decided to stay at least another five days in Istanbul before heading off to explore the rest of Turkey. If we’re lucky the eastern part of the country will have warmed up a bit by the time we get there – at the moment there’s still a lot of snow around.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Turkey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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