Istanbullish

After a day touring mosques, markets and more I can say we are smitten with Istanbul. It’s a sprawling but beautiful city well worth it’s accolades as one of the world’s top cities. We covered a lot of ground, aided by our capable guide Lale, including a side trip to the Asian side of the city that wasn’t on the original itinerary. That was itself a bit of a revelation. While the European side had more hustle and bustle the little bit we saw of the Asian side was more laid back, and temperature-wise cooler because it was breezier.

Today was really built around seeing some of the top sites such as the Hagia Sophia, the church built by the emperor Justinian and still standing, with enhancements, 1500+ years later. It was converted into a mosque but is no longer used as one. We also visited the famous Blue Mosque. The blue tile work was impressive but in keeping with the tenets of Islam, all visitors must remove their shoes before entering. As our guide explained, it is rooted in beliefs about cleanliness — outside is dirty, inside is clean, so don’t bring in any of the dirt. Unfortunately, when you put a couple hundred tourists in a confined space after they have been trekking about on a hot day and what do you get? Eau de locker room.

To keep this post brief, we had lunch at one one of the city’s best known kebab houses (Hamdi); toured the spice market and another smaller but in many ways more interesting mosque; and cruised the Bosporus via one of the regular ferries, ending on the Asian side where we enjoyed a Turkish coffee. From there we took the subway that runs under the Bosporus back to the western side, picked up the tram and went to Taksim Square, famous as a focal point for anti-government protests a couple of years ago. We managed the tram on our first day, but Lale helped us get the equivalent of a Metro card for multiple trips. From Taksim we walked down the pedestrian mall, which was packed and unfortunately not vastly different from other similar venues we have seen. We finished by enjoying drinks and the awesome view at Leb-i-derya. That is below, along with other photos.