Istanbul had always been at the top of our never ending "to visit" list....so we were thrilled to spend a long weekend there in mid-September. It was a truly amazing experience as it seemed like a world away in terms of the culture and people. Tom fell in love with the ancient history from the days when this land was Constantinople and ruled by the Ottoman Empire. And, I fell in love with the visual imagery....the colors, patterns, tiles and architecture.
We weren't quite sure what to expect prior to going and Istanbul far exceeded our expectations. For those that don't know Turkey is the only country that crosses both Europe and Asia. 99% of the country is Muslim and it is a HUGE city with over 17 million people living in greater Istanbul! Which leads to some really horrible traffic at all hours of the day.
We left Warsaw's crisp fall weather for a weekend in the high 70's and plenty of sunshine. Our first full day in Istanbul we went on a guided tour of all of the ancient sites. We saw the
Topkapi Palace, a gorgeous palace that still stands from the days when a Sultan ruled the Ottoman Empire. Next we toured the
Hagia Sofia, a Catholic church, turned Muslim Mosque, turned present day museum. This building was incredible and the details throughout were so cool to see. We stopped in the middle of the day for a traditional quick Turkish lunch, meatballs and fava bean salad...quite good! Our afternoon included a trip to the
Basilica Cistern, one of a series of cisterns that was built in the 6th centruy to supply water to the city. Tom loved checking it out and thinking about how such a complex underground strucutre was constructed so many years ago. Our final stop was to the famous
Blue Mosque. This mosque gets its nickname from the multitude of blue tiles throughout the interior. The mosque is a very popular tourist site but is still in use. Therefore, we were required to remove our shoes before entering and remain very quiet while inside.
After a long day of sighteseeing we went to a negihborhood steakhouse that was filled with only Turks for dinner. There was no menu, we were simply brought "the usual" which was fantastic...especially considering good red meat can be hard to come by in Poland!
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| Delicious fresh fruit upon arrival |
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| Cheers to vacation! |
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| Tom thinks everything is a-okay! |
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| The view from our 29th floor hotel room overlooking the bridge crossing the Bosphorus going from the European side to the Asian side |
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| Overlooking the Bosphorus |
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| Inside the Palace walls |
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| The palace library |
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| Inside Hagia Sofia |
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| Ancient mosaics telling the story of christianity |
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| the view from the balcony |
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| Tom trying for Turkish good luck by attempting to twis his hand all the way around his thumb |
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| Blue Mosque |
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| Turkish Lunch! |
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| Inside the Cistern |
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| Cistern columns were reused from destryoed buildings instead of rebuilding them to save time |
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| In front of the Blue Mosque |
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| Beautiful details in the blue mosque |
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| Freshly squeezed pomegranate juice |
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| The entrance to the Grand Bazaar |
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| A Turkish tradition....baklava |
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| Who knew there were so many types? even chocolate! |
