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...)