Istanbul Day Two
Since the boat stayed over night in Istanbul we were able to get a nice early start the next morning. The palace was closed this day so our top priority was Hagia Sophia. Hagia Sophia is very old and has been many different kinds of churches. Now it is a museum. I am really glad we got there right when it opened- we only had to wait in a line of a bout 40 people. When we were exiting there was a very long line wrapping around the block!
There is an interesting mix of Muslim and Christian iconography.
Eric's favorite part- Viking rune graffiti.
As we were leaving we found this guy. He is on the awning to a snack vendor.
Hagia Sophia is right next to the Blue Mosque.
We went back and got some better pictures in the sunshine.
Museum time!
Hermaphrodite!
These were once horses.
Much needed lunch in the museum cafe. I got a yummy lentil soup and a ton of bread, Eric got a stuffed artichoke. All for a very reasonable price!
We actually spent quite a long time in the museum even though I don't have as many pictures as I normally do. It had very nice collections but an absolutely awful layout that was always putting you in a dead end- forcing you to backtrack through miles of exhibit.
Turkey is on the Turkish Lira (inconvenient when everywhere else has been on the Euro). So we spent our last Lira cash on this amazing Turkish Delight shop. The kid behind the counter was really nice and gave us a ton of samples. It was all amazing!
What should we do now? I know- let's get on a different boat! We had timed our day so that it would line up with the afternoon river cruise. One of the first things we passed was our main boat!
Turkish Delight Time!
A giant fortress thing! We saw people walking along the wall so it accepts tourists! That is the major downside to the cruise- not enough time on shore...
Can you tell by this picture how cold it suddenly got?
Another sign of the cold- this deck was packed when we left in the sunshine. We were 2 of about 5 people who stayed up top the whole time.
The river cruise was great! Eric said it was his favorite part of Istanbul. We took a short version but there are longer ones that Rick Steves recommends. There was shoreline on both sides with lots of fancy hotels, mosques, mansions, fortresses, and palaces to look at. After the cruise it was getting dark and we both really wanted to get back to the large boat (hungry, cold, cranky because we were out of Turkish Delight) but we pushed through the pain and walked to the Grand Bazaar.
It was really neat- and huge! We had spent all our Lira so we were not able to really shop but I definitely could have. It was also really weird because the entrance we entered had no power (temporary power outage). So we were walking the Bazaar in the dark. Some shops had lights and others had generators so there was enough light to get around- it was still very surreal. We did not linger long because we had to get back on the boat soon. I wish we could have spent more time there but I was glad we made ourselves go.
Back on the boat we treated ourselves to a little bit of down time, snack buffet and went to the Christmas variety show- because it was Christmas eve! The show was fun and then we went to a restaurant where we both got turkey, stuffing and potatoes.
I had planned on going to the church service they were holding but it was not being held until midnight and after a full day of walking I fell asleep long before. Not a very traditional Christmas but a very memorable one- Christmas in Istanbul!
No comments:
Post a Comment