Rewind … Istanbul Day 3

After taking a taxi everywhere on Day 2 we thought we’d tackle the tram system in Istanbul.  According to Google Maps, the tram stop was just outside of our hotel.  Right across the street in Taxim Square, is a cute little tram car.  Very old school like the ones they use in San Francisco.  We pay our 4 TL, hop on the tram and start riding down the street.  Until we realize that the little blue dot on our iPad GPS is not moving in the direction we thought we were supposed to be going.  We were not on the right tram.  Fortunately, that tram line doesn’t go very far and they kicked us off at the end of the line maybe a mile away from our hotel.  So then we started looking for what we thought was another tram station nearby.  We got semi-lost and finally found a metro / subway station, not a tram station.  So we gave up and got a taxi! (P.S.  The subway icons and the tram icons on Google maps look very similar.)  (P.P.S What did we do before GPS?  We would have been completely lost on those curvy Istanbul streets without the iPad.)

The first stop was Topkapi Palace.  Home to the Ottoman Sultans and their harems from the mid-1400’s to the mid-1800’s.  It’s a huge complex with many different buildings but the most interesting part was the tour of the Harem.  The small museum accompanying the tour had a lot of interesting information on the hierarchy of the harem system and how young girls would be educated and could work their way up in the harem system and eventually marry the sultan or another nobleman of the empire.  They also had a pretty impressive collection of jewels and bejeweled artifacts belonging to the sultan.  

 We ate lunch at the café on the terrace overlooking the Bosphorus.  I think we were too tired to remember to take any pictures of that lunch so you’ll have to take our word for it that it was delicious and the view was fantastic!

Next, we walked back towards the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia with the intention of seeing the Basilica Cistern.  But the line was really really long so we just sat in the park and did some quality people watching.  At least until Amanda remembered that we wanted to try some Turkish ice cream and we had seen a vendor just up the street the day before.  So we set off in search of ice cream.  And promptly got lost again.  OK, not really lost, just on a different street than the one we intended.  I’m telling you, Istanbul streets are narrow, curvy, and easy to get mixed up!  But we stumbled upon a great souvenir shop and we eventually found the ice cream stand so it was worth it. 

Turkish ice cream (dondurma) is denser and stickier than American ice cream and probably more delicious also.  I had lemon so it was more like a sherbet than ice cream but was excellent.   “Two qualities distinguish Turkish ice cream: texture and resistance to melting. Inclusion of the thickening agents salep, a flour made from the root of the Early Purple Orchid, and mastic, a resin that imparts chewiness. Dondurma is commonly sold from both street vendor's carts and store fronts where the mixture is churned regularly with long-handled paddles to keep it workable.” (from Wikipedia)

And not far from the ice cream stand was the tram we had been searching for.  So we hopped on and took it back to the hotel.  For reference, the station we should have gotten on that morning near the hotel is underground like the subway … even though it’s a tram line … which is above ground … except that section.  You can understand our confusion.

The final adventure of the day was an 8pm flight from Istanbul to Split Croatia with a very short layover in Zagreb.  More on that and our other Croatia adventures in the next posts.

Video from Istanbul

The call to prayer - park between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia

Belly dancer from the Bosphorus River Cruise

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"You're on vacation ... you're supposed to act like a child"

Amanda's response to my suggestion that we eat nothing but pastries and hot chocolate for breakfast.  I like traveling with Amanda.

Rewind … Istanbul, Day 2

Day 2 started really great … or really poorly … depending on how you look at it.  We didn’t set an alarm thinking we’d be up early after our previous day’s nap and early bed time.  But those light blocking curtains really did their job.  I woke up at 9:30 when housekeeping knocked on the door.  I think Amanda was mad at me for waking her up until I told her how late it was.  So much for an early start.

After breakfast, we headed to the Blue Mosque.  It was built in the early 1600’s and is still an active mosque although they allow streams of tourists to parade through the mosque between prayers.  The posted rules say that both men and women must be in long pants (or skirts) and women must have covered arms and hair.   For those who didn’t plan ahead, they did have wraps to cover bare legs and scarves for the women although the head covering was not strictly enforced.  Amanda and I had our own scarves and had dressed conservatively for the day but we were amazed by the number of tourists with complete disregard for the customs of the mosque.

It is impossible to capture the majesty of the mosque in a picture.  It is a beautiful and vast building with multiple domes, all covered with intricate tile work.  Here are a few pictures to get the idea.

The Blue Mosque

Next, we walked across the park to the Hagia Sophia.  Original construction began in 360 A.D. and served as a Christian basilica until the 1400’s.  It was then converted to a mosque and used as such until 1935 when it was secularized and turned into the museum that it is today.  Like the Blue Mosque it is a grand building that you cannot adequately capture in a picture.  It is mainly decorated in plaster, instead of tile, and is an interesting mix of Christian and Muslim symbols.

Hagia Sophia

 We ate lunch at a small stand in the park between the Blue Mosque and Sophia.  While we were eating we heard the call to prayer from the mosque.  Amanda has it captured on video on her camera so I’ll have to get a copy and post it later.

Next was the Grand Bazaar which was neither as grand or as bizarre as I was expecting.  (I know, bazaar does not mean bizarre but just go with me here.)  I knew the bazaar was covered but was expecting something a little more open air with more of farmer’s market feel.  Instead, the ceilings are low and domed … similar to the crypt restaurants you find in the basements of the great churches in England.  And there are actual shops stuffed to overflowing that line the corridors for what seems like infinity.  You can find everything from Levi’s to high end jewelry to post cards and key chains.  And many of the shops all sell the same things.  Below is a picture of one of the light shops as well as the bazaar entrance.  

 Our final adventure of the day was night time dinner cruise on the Bosphorus.  The Bosphorus is the straight that divides the European side of Istanbul from the Asian side. The cruise was over priced, the food was mediocre, and the entertainment was cheesy.  But spending 3 hours on the water at night did provide some beautiful sights of the city.  I’ll post a video of the belly dancer in another post :-)

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Rewind ... Istanbul, Day 1

Finally have a quiet evening so I'll back up and post some pictures from our time in Turkey.

Day 1 ... is never a good day.  We stumbled off our 10 1/2 hour flight from JFK at Atatürk Airport in Istanbul.  Fortunately visa, passport, and customs are all very efficient and simple in Turkey.  We had a very helpful taxi driver offer his services for only 80 € ($105) to our hotel.  We found the shuttle bus for 20 Turkish Lira ($11).

The hotel was great.  IBM Corporate Service Corps booked it for our group stay so we thought it would be good enough for our vacation as well.  A little pricey but really nice.  Here is the hotel at night and the views from the breakfast room on the top floor.

Hotel at night

View from breakfast - front of hotel

View from breakfast - back of hotel

We ate lunch at a kebab restaurant near the hotel.  Good food but we were still half asleep.  So back to the room for a little 'down time' that turned into a 3 hour nap.  Oh well, neither of us slept on the plane so we were dead tired. 
We woke up long enough to find a nice dinner at Pharos near the hotel and then turned in for the night.

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Good Morning Croatia

Thank you Istanbul ... On to Croatia

A whirlwind tour so far so I haven't had time to blog. Hopefully I'll have time to post an update tomorrow. We had 3 packed days in Istanbul and are now in Beautiful Croatia!