If you’re not familiar with Islam, those are minarets, at least one of which is typically found at a mosque, and are used to call Muslims to prayer six times a day. It’s an interesting sound, to be sure. We heard the call right before we left on the 25th, and it certainly helped to add to the overall exotic vibe of the city. Anyway, close to 15 million people live in Istanbul, and there are mosques both large and small all over the city, and thus minarets everywhere you turn.
The first place we visited was Topkapi Palace, which is where the sultans (like a king or emperor) of the Ottoman Empire lived before the end of the Ottoman Empire early in the 20th century. The building structure wasn’t as impressive as I was expecting, especially considering the fact that the palace was near one of the largest churches (later converted into a mosque) and one of the largest mosques in the world. What was inside was a lot more impressive.
The entrance to the palace:
The palace had various chambers and gates inside it, with some being for visitors, and others for only the sultan himself. It felt like we walked through several gates, but it was probably only a few. Here’s another example:
Notice in the picture that there are people everywhere. Not only were there tons of tour groups at the palace, but we also learned that our visit happened to coincide with the last day of a 7-day “Turks get in free” event at the palace. Half of Istanbul must have turned out for this, because it was crazy inside the palace. Unfortunately, the half that turned out also happened to be the half that didn’t wear deodorant, because it reeked of B.O. inside the palace chambers. Really bad.
The palace grounds (you’ll see our crappy tour guide in this video—more on him later):
I don’t typically take lots of pictures in museums because I don’t find seeing things out of their original context all that interesting, but check out the size of these cauldrons in the palace kitchen:
The girl in the picture (note the shawl—common for Muslims in Turkey, but being a secular country, the shawl is not required unless one is visiting a mosque, and thus it wasn’t as prevalent as I was expecting) is sitting in front of a small fountain. The sultan used to have this fountain turned on when he was meeting with foreign dignitaries so that people couldn’t hear what they were talking about.
Looks like Arabic, but it’s Turkish. Arabic script was used to write Turkish until the early 20th century, when the Roman alphabet was adopted:
Topkapi Palace is located on the European side of Istanbul, and offers some nice views of the Bosporus Straits:
The bridge in the distance connects the Europe and Asia sides of the city, and is one of the largest suspension bridges in the world.
Becca probably has lots of pictures of the things we saw inside the palace, and she’ll probably post them when she gets around to writing about Istanbul. Needless to say, we saw lots of jewels, swords and religious relics (included some of Mohammed’s (founder of Islam) personal belongings) inside the palace museums. Personally, I didn’t care for how ostentatious a lot of it was. The palace and the belongings of the sultans left me feeling like the sultans had a major inferiority complex, and thus had to be very showy with their possessions in order to either outdo each other or to impress visiting dignitaries. I mean, come on—do you really need hundreds of jewels in your goblets, armor and other things?
Our visit to the palace seemed like it would never end. A lot of this had to do with the crowds, but more of it had to do with the aforementioned crappy tour guide, Jon. Jon was a local, and for whatever reason (I don’t know if it was linguistic difficulties, a cultural thing or what), he would repeat everything he told us a minimum of three times. And, he had something to say about everything. “Look here, can you imagine? This is where kids like to play basketball. And this is where the Byzantine Emperors went #2. Can you imagine that they went #2? You are standing in where the Emperors went #2, and #2 they went.” Lucky us, Jon was also our tour guide for day 2, so we got to experience this everywhere we went. It also meant that we ended up having to hurry everywhere we went because he ran his yap, and ran his yap he did, can you imagine? The shadow he cast over our Istanbul visit is still hanging in the sky over the city.
Anyway, enough about the tour guide. Our last stop of the day was to the (in)famous Grand Bazaar, which is a large indoor market (there are some 4000 shops inside) established over 600 years ago after the Ottomans conquered the city. We were told prior to visiting that it would be best if we looked inside, took some pictures and got out quickly. This turned out to be wise counsel for two major reasons:
- There were a zillion people there, most of whom were tourists. Man, do I hate tourists (note sarcasm).
- Getting a good deal inside is not the easiest thing, since the shop tenants have to pay high rents, just as they would if they were inside a shopping mall.
My mother had requested that I buy her something in Istanbul, something traditionally Turkish, and this seemed like the ideal place to do it, so that was our mission for the Grand Bazaar visit. Once I found something that I thought would be appropriate (and I won’t say what it is since she’ll read this and I haven’t given it to her yet), I asked the shopkeeper in question how much it would be. When he said 40 lira, I countered with an offer of 10 (which was still way more than this item was worth), but he wouldn’t budge. Goodbye, shopkeeper. I found the item at another shop, and the shopkeeper asked for 5 lira. I countered with an offer of 3, and we settled on 4 lira. I would soon discover that this kind of bargaining would be required for EVERYTHING we bought in Turkey, no matter where we were. More on this later.
A typical street in the old (European) part of the city:
The entrance to the bazaar:
Inside the bazaar:
We left the bazaar pretty quickly. We had been “enticed” into a carpet shop (carpets/rugs are probably the most famous Turkish handicraft) to look at rugs, and it felt like being cornered by the mafia, so between this and the trinket purchasing experience, we had seen enough of the bazaar. We visited another carpet shop outside the bazaar (this one had been recommended by our ship’s shopping consultants), and ended up buying a very small rug there after some haggling. I really like the colors and the design, but we should have examined it more closely before buying it. I think it was their floor model (no pun intended), and when we examined it closely when we got back to the US, we noticed that there was some discoloration in parts. Oh well—lesson learned. The rugs were way more expensive than we were expecting (I was thinking we could get something nice and big for maybe $500—I was at least $2000-3000 off in my estimate), so what we bought can only be hung on the wall—it’s so small that it’s not functional. In any case, it’s pretty, and someday when I have a bigger house and more money and care a little bit more, maybe I’ll go back and get one or two normal-sized carpets. They are really pretty.
We got a demonstration of the weaving process in one shop. The carpet being woven was pretty amazing:
After our carpet purchase, we were hungry and wanted to sample some local food before we got back on the bus. We found a small restaurant that had giant skewers of chicken in the front, so we went there and got…well, I don’t know what it was called, but it was good. Pieces of chicken were cut off the skewer and put inside a tortilla-like bread with lettuce, tomatoes and a sauce, and then wrapped up. It was quite good.
Remember what I was saying about bargaining being required for everything in Turkey? Well, the reason for this is that prices are rarely listed on anything in Turkey, no matter where you are. I didn’t think about this before ordering our Turkish sandwich thingy, and found that when we were ready to leave and asked how much it would be, the guys in the restaurant discussed it amongst themselves before telling me what I owed them. The final price was 5 lira, which is not a huge deal, but probably far more than I would have paid had I negotiated the price beforehand.
We were taken back to the ship after this, and found a large buffet of Turkish food laid out on the pool deck. The food was great. I mostly ate grilled meats, and Becca didn’t eat much at all since she wasn’t feeling well. It was cool to sit outside with views of the city all around us as we ate.
Looking at the European side of Istanbul:
Turkish buffet on the ship:
The part of the city nearest the ship:
Hagia Sophia (four minarets) and the Blue Mosque (six minarets) in the distance:
After dinner, a belly dancing show was provided. We didn’t watch very long since Becca wasn’t feeling so hot, but that’s OK.
More on Istanbul later…
it sounds like you ate something like a kebap. they are awesome.
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