A Room in the Topkapi Palace I

A tour through a room in the Topkapi Palace II

And we're back to the beginning again. The Fantastical City of Istanbul from the bridge

But first, here is the tower that led us home every evening. Some people believe it was built by an emperor around 518AD but most evidence points to its construction by the Genoese when they ruled the Northern shores of the Golden Horn, where our hotel was. Yip, for those of you wondering, even the powerful Genoese trading city had an outpost here, trading with the Byzantiums in the old city. Yes, Genoa in Italy.

And back we go to the Topkapi Palace and the Harem section where the royal family lived. The Sultan's Mother was the most influential person in the palace and thus the second most influential in the land (so it goes) These were her bathing quarters. With cleanliness being next to godliness and all that she had an entire marbled room at her disposal for ablutions. This is simply one corner of it.
This is simply an example of the opulence of the quarters of those living in the Harem. Everything is cushions and couches, drapes and carvings. But remember the carvings are never of people or animals, simply patterns allowed by Islam
There are still many buildings kept in their traditional form in the rest of the Palace, outside of the Harem. There are basically 3 courtyards leading into one another with buildings surrounding them and pavilions dotting them. Only certain people were allowed into each courtyard, the first reserved for the governing of the Empire (throne room, reception room etc), the second for the running of the Palace (kitchens, stables etc) and the third seems to have been designated for healing including the pavilion (home) of the chief healer, and the pavilion below used for circumcision...who said you cant be in pain surrounded by opulent splendour?
I am still trying to reduce the size of the videos so they will load. Hopefully they will be posted soon

Topkapi Palace and cruise of Bospherous

Back from charter, I have a few moments to continue the Istanbul Saga. Again in reverse order we have the Topkapi Palace. This is basically where the Sultans lived. This is their private swimming pool in the 'family' portion of the palace known as the Harem. The balcony this was taken from is the Sultan's private patio with access to the quarters of his ladies.

After literally hours of wandering (puposefully) around the Topkapi Palace we needed a break off our feet and so jumped on a tour boat up the Bosphorous. We travelled up the Bosphorous hugging the European continent and returned skimming the Asian shores. The contrast is astounding. The European coast is lined with palaces and lavish hotels (that probably once were palaces). The most impressive being the palace the Sultan's moved to in 1856, the Dolmabahce Palace, leaving the Topkapi Palace to the lesser royalty and non favourites. Unfortunately no time to explore the interior but hey, next time.

We didnt quite make it to the Black Sea (its rather a distance) but turned at this bridge over the Bosphorus. Thats Europe on the left and Asia on the right.
And returning we got a close up of Asia. Startlingly different!!! In place of the grand Palaces and opulent hotels there are...parks and houses with regular looking people going about their day. What does stand out though, is the differences between the waterfront houses. One house will be splendidly maintained with a clean, protected dock for their boat while their neighbour is a burnt out husk with broken windows and falling down roof. As you sail past you cant believe that youre looking at the same scene from one house to the next.
Returning to land we collapsed into cushions at a restaurant where we drank the local drink (which tasted suspiciously like a good Ouzo - Greek drink that turns white when you put water in it La) And were serenaded by this gentleman with helpful translations from our waiter.

And then there was More Istanbul

Hello my name is Caz and I'm a street food junkie.

Everywhere I go there is the insatiable urge to try street food, all of it. The streetfood in Istanbul is actually not too exotic. Here we have a vendor selling oval green things from his cart. Guessing they were melons and obviously intrigued I bought one. This meant getting a full five minute show of food preparation and voila, you have a....cucumber... An odd, oval shaped one, but a cucumber none the less. A little salt and yum.

Another street food that is sold with flair is The IceCream. The process of building a Turkish IceCream involves slapping large slabs of each flavour around with a giant spoon and the ringing of a bell which hangs above the IceCream Artist's head. It turns out the icecream is not like the type we know. For one, its chewy and for two, you can turn the cone upside down and it doesnt fall out (something the Artists enjoy doing to the shrieks of the tourists). It tastes like a derivative of condensed milk. A cone this size is unfinishable (for most) and will lighten your wallet by the equivalent of R30.

Another of my travel expenses is a local music instrument (Thanks Mom for the first of my collection from Egypt) So off to a music store we went and this is what we found. In the photo, below the man and to the left are wooden tubes. I suppose they function in a similar fashion to a clarinet or maybe like a recorder with a reed mouth piece. They come in various sizes for various uses. The large ones are apparently for playing the mystical Sufi music while the smaller ones (like I bought) are the musical accompanyment to puppet shows...

At last we have photos of Constantine's Cathedral, Hagia Sophia (Sacred Wisdom) The first cathedral was built between 325 and 360Ad (these things take time) and was known as Megalo Ekklesia due to its size. But as is the way with these things, the cathedral on this spot burnt down several times. The neck stiffening, breath-taker we see today was built by Justinian. Of course, bigger and better than ever before, and oh yes, this time, out of marble please...no wood. So marbles where brought in from all over the Empire and instead of making columns from scratch, a few were 'borrowed' from places like Delphi. It took 1000 master-craftsmen and 10000 labourers on site, only 5 years to complete this neck-craning, jaw-dropper. But of course when the Ottoman took over and magnificence was transformed into a mosque, all images of people and animals had to be covered...goodbye mosaics and carved marble, hello wood and paint. Even the Sultan of the time realised, this just doesnt work. It makes the wood and paint look crude. So he built Sultanahmet to show what a Mosque really could be like....remember that dome of grand and intricate design from a previous blog? Wow! It really is a pity that Hagia Sophia is not in her original form, imagine, two unbelievable structures such as these, in their original form, facing each other across a fountained park. The Cathedral has been converted into a museum and as such it has been deemed safe to uncover some of the mosaics and marble carvings giving you an idea of what once was. Ah I suppose most religions do this to one another's histories at some stage.
And this is not even the main dome. As you can imagine from this photo it is physically impossible to get the complete idea/feeling of the place in a single photo. So i am still trying to upload those videos to give you a better impression of the place

Exploring more of Istanbul

And again the photos are all mixed up so we wont be going through this in the order the Captain and I did it in. We first went to Haiga Sophia, then the Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet) and then the Hippodrom. So when you get to the pics of Araya Sophia you will understand that we didnt have very high expectations for Sultanahmet. Wow were we surprised. Built by Ahmet I in 1600s, its purpose was to rival its neighbour, the cathedral which had recently been turned into a mosque. My oh my! Absolutely massive dome, none of that clutter you find in other religious houses - just a carpet to pray on - and no images of things allowed so why not cover every inch in patterns...yes, every single square inch. Obviously photos dont give a good impression of size (mine anyway) so i took a video and will load it as soon as I can figure out how to reduce it to the 100MB limit blogger allows. The blue, cut off dome is the centre one and literally soaring up there with the clouds.

To give you an impression of size, compare the column in this pick to the people (those closest to its base. Then, yes, it is the same size column as the one in the photo above. Not to forget all the stained glass windows on this level too, mind you.
Moving into the shopping district. This is one 'street' down the Covered or Grand Bazaar. Literally streets and streets and streets of shops. Unlike the Egyptian Bazaar previously mentioned, this Bazaar is not mostly food stuffs, it is scarves, carpets (didnt find any that flew though), clothes, tech, antiques, hubblys etc etc. Sadly enough, with all this global sharing, there really was very little to buy there that you cant buy in South Africa. It simply brought about the realisation of how many Turkish things we have back home. Then again, as Istanbul, Constantinople, Byzantium has always been the cross roads of trade routes one would expect them to have everybody else's stuff and everybody else to have theirs
Another jump takes us back to the Hippodrome. Remember Constantine's Column? The one that was very degraded looking with the stolen bronze plates. Well thats in the background of this pic and here we have The Serpent's Column. This is another of those 'roaming monuments' As it was originally part of a structure given to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. After the victory of 31 Greek Cities against the Persians in 479BC the tripod base (of which this column was a part) was cast from the collected Persian weapons. The base was three intertwined serpents holding a golden cauldron on their heads, two of which remain, one head being in the British Museum (where else?) and the other in the Istanbul Archeological museum....um yes, sorry, we missed that one in between the thousands of other statues.

And the final column in the Hippodrome/Sutanahmet Square is non other than an Egyptian Obelisk. Yip, what Square is complete without an authentic, ancient pilfered Egyptian Obelisk. This one was originally erected by Tutmosis III in the 1400'sBC. The hieroglyphs describe the various victories of the pharoh and on the tip TutmosisIII kneels offering a sacrifice to Amon-Ra. Theodosius I moved it to its current location in 390AD and fitted it to a marble base carved with scenes of his great achievements....him putting up the Obelisk.
Tomorrow more guests arrive and we are frantically bury getting the boat ready - all those last minute things. So I hope I get time to put up a few more of the pics. But I am limited to 5 at a time and have way more than that left (feel lucky, I sifted through the Captain's over 600 photo logged files of our 2 and a half day trip - plus my photos - to choose these some 35 or so photos...)

The history parts of Istanbul (and some other bits)

Once again we were on the search for the Topkapi Palace but got lost and found the... Archaeological Museum. In said museum we found 3000 years worth of 'relics'. My oh my. They have so many artefacts they store a few couple of thousand year old marble um things in the well, garden where the kids can play on them... There are literally rooms and rooms and rooms filled with marble statues from the Greek and Roman eras, not to mention sarcophagi, puppets etc etc

So this one is believed (by the Turks at least) to be Alexander the Greats sarcophagus. Unfortunately there is no actual proof to substantiate this but hey, no one knows for sure where he is finally resting so why not. Hmmm you'd have thought he'd had enough of battles in life not to spend his time after life surrounded by pictures of them.

I took a file worth of photos of Greek and Roman sculptures, all the while trying to learn how to tell the difference (apparently the Greeks didnt like facial expression while the Romans did, um or was it the other way around) and remember who they where. But the only one I could figure out who it was post holiday was good old Artemis here. The sculptures are incredible. Unbelievably lifelike and mostly perfectly preserved (they seem to battle to hold on to their hands though)

Outside the Hagia Sophia, in the Sultanahmet Square are the remains of the Hippodrome which was built with the Circus Maximus, in Rome, in mind. Construction began with Septimus Severus in 203AD and was finally completed on a grander scale by Constantine in 325AD. Originally it seated 100 000 spectators. The Column below is that of Constantine Porphyrgenatus and was originally covered with bronze plaques. These unfortunately did not make it past the Latin invasion in 1204 (4th Crusade??? all the second language Info Booklets get confusing) as they were smelted and minted. For a contrasting column: See the Obelisk of Theodosius - Egyptian Obelisk....interesting comparison of conditions. (yes, ok this one did have its clothes removed)

And here we have another blogger mix up. We are now standing on the first bridge over the Golden Horn looking at the old side of the city and the Yeni Mosque at night. The Captain suggested I put this one in (though he did not dictate this unfortunately random ordering of photos) as it shows the rows of fishing rods hanging over the bridge. The bridge is lined with fishermen day and night. And what with all the food on wheels in this city of convenience, they have an option of 1Euro dinners pushed right too them, never having to reel in to enjoy a meal of chicken and couscous or whole fried fish or perhaps even a green mielie.

The sun was setting on our first day in Istanbul and after having run our feet off looking for the Topkapi Palace (to no avail) we sat in a tea garden, in the park previously featured on this blog, sipping coffee and watching life on the Bospherous go by.

Across the bay, looking substantially closer through the Captains portable telescope he calls a camera lens, is Leander's Tower. The Byzantine Emperor Manuel Comnenos built it in the 12thC as a foundation for the ginormous chain he used to close the Bosphorous to sea traffic. The legend behind this tower, as in most cases, is slightly more um entertaining than the practicality of the believed to be true version. uhurum Once upon a time there lived the Emperor Constantine who had a daughter more beautiful than a thousand rising suns. One day a nasty old fortune teller told the Emperor that this light of his life was going to be bitten by a snake one day and die. So the Emperor did the only thing he could...built a tower in the middle of the sea and locked his daughter in it... Unfortunately even towered princesses need food and one day, as so often happens, there was a snake hidden in a basket of grapes brought to the island tower. The snake bit the princess and she died.

This legend, though not the only one about the tower, gave the tower its name often used today Kiz Kulesi, Maiden's Tower

(The version I read was slightly dry so I may have added a few 'once upon a times' and '1000 suns' but the storyline is the same)

Again all mixed up but hey, here we go again.

This is Turkish Coffee. The best way to describe it would be really tasty sludge. The best we could guess is that they boil the ground coffee in a pot, with sugar if so wish, and then into your cup it goes, grinds and all. But yum yum buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Looking for the Topkapi Palace we stumbled across the park. It turns out the park runs the length of the Palace wall, outside. It is open to everyone and a surprisingly peaceful place in the middle of a hectically busy city.

Our first meal. We arrived in Istanbul just before lunch and by the time I finally got through passport control, after having to chat to the chief of airport police due to a mixup with stamps and visas etc, it was way way way past lunchtime and we were to starving tourists willing to try it all... here we have The Captain eating a lamb with a side dish of well um yes, and a bowl of um ok well dessert. On my tray there are kebabs, vine-leaves wrapping around rice and stuff, and a salad of yoghurt mixed with some sort of leafy, lettucey, herby, potentially viney greenstuff. And there you have it, a very informative description of local food.

We were staying on the Modern Side of the Golden Horn. This meant a long long walk into the touristy town...or a tram ride, with a connection or two. We normally walked as the things to see along the way were, well, worth seeing. All around our hotel are the embassy buildings. Some of them have been there for a substantial number of centuries. (Russia, it would seem, was the only country not very enthusiastic about permanently placing someone on Turkish soil) They are impressive buildings, from the outside at least, and looking out of our hotel one can see the proudly flapping Union Jack, yip, the British Embassy.

I couldnt help myself with photo. Just one of the many little things on sale in Istanbul, Aladdins lamp.

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And the tour of Istanbul begins:

We stayed on the Northern side of the Golden Horn and so had to cross the bridge each morning to get to the main touristy parts. This is the first of many many many mosques you see. It is called Yeni but I think it is also referred to as the New Mosque. Hmmm its all relative when the first one was built in the 1400s. But apparently it was the last of the great classical mosque complexes to be built and so retained the name of New.

Slightly older, we have the Aquaduct of Valens. This was built by Constantine, completed in 378AD and has 800 odd meters of the original 1000 meters still standing (the rest was pulled down for the building of...you guessed it...mosques)

As in most gigantic cities you have big roads with lots of cars and many people who need to cross. So you go under. But why waste that valuable um potential retail area. Like South African robot shopping, you can buy almost anything under the roads of Istanbul. The difference being, here even the namebrands have stores. You can buy nokia phones from a nokia store etc etc all inbetween the stores selling things "Made In China" Hmmm we did encounter a problem when too many people stop to shop...the passage is only 4 people wide and these shops are not the kind you actually go into...

Ok OK so i STILL havent got a handle on this blogging picture things. So please forgive the random order of pics. Here we have some of the things you can buy in the Bazaars. Yip, leeches. We never did find out if they were medical, food or fish bait...

But its not all slimy bloodsuckers. Among the leeches, carpets, clothes, antiques and spices we have my favourite stalls...Turkish delight!!! Mmmmm the Turkish idea of Delight is not restricted to jellied rosewater. oh no. It is everything from what we would call the creamiest, nuttiest nougat to the better known jelly types but why not include nuts and coconut and chocolate and and and and. Mmmmm and its all so fresh its somehow solid and yet chewy without sticking to your teeth. In a word...perfect

Istanbul Turkey

The only city to straddle continents, Istanbul has been occupied for around 3000 years. Apparently Byzas lead some people from the city of Magara (near Athens) to build a new city. On consulting the oracles of Delphi he was told to build it "opposite the land of the blind". When they arrived on Seraglio Point they saw the Phoenician colony of Chalcedon on the other side and realising they themselves were on the way more beautiful side, decided that the people of Chalcedon must have been blind when choosing their spot thus making Chalcedon the oracles' "land of the blind". They founded their city between the Golden Horn and Lygos, naming it after their leader...Byzantion....

So the Greeks colonised the city during the Hellenistic invasion in 750-550BC and it was briefly taken over by the Persians, besieged by Phillip of Macedonia in 340BC (after which the city walls were repaired with tombstones) and finally the Romans came. This bit seems a bit iffy where the Greeks were 'under Roman protection' and everything was in the wording really. But ultimately control was with the Romans. In 325AD Constantine 'rebuilt' the city and had an official city opening on 11 May 330AD naming it New Rome (Roma Nova) and the capital of the empire now known as the Byzantium Empire (um but most people simply called the city Constantinople).

Then came the Ottoman. 1453 brought Mehmet II to conquer Constantinople, and the Fat Lady Singing for the Byzantium/Roman Empire. Istanbul was the capital of the Ottoman Empire until Turkey became a Republic in 1923 and the capital of Turkey was declared to be Ankara...

Now hows that for 'A Brief History of Istanbul'. Ok ok there were many many more battles and significant trades, moving of city walls, building of important buildings etc etc. but you get the jist of it right?

Here we have it. Istanbul. This is the old part of town taken from a bridge over the Golden Horn. Open this pic, enlarge it and pan across to get an idea of the city. Pity about the overcast bit but it gives you an idea of the number of mosques in the city and maybe you can 'see' the rolling hills (thank goodness for the trams)

The entire city covers an area of 5712 km2, So yes, this is a tiny part.

When I get more time we can explore some of those important buildings, those important people built, mostly (all except 1 I think) in this part of town. Yes yes yes, there is way way more than just this But we only had 2 and half days...