A Week in Istanbul

Dave the Turk

We arrived in Istanbul Turkey on March 24th after a 6 ½ hour flight from Delhi, India. A last minute bout of the flu meant Dave barely made it on the airplane but a seat adjacent to the bathroom made it doable and Dave quickly obtained status as the bathroom attendant. After smelly, dirty, noisy India (not that I have an opinion or anything!), Istanbul was a collective breath of fresh air.

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Clean streets, cooler temperatures, organized traffic where people obey traffic laws and stunning architecture are just a few of Istanbul’s strong points. Shortly after arriving, the other two members of the family came down with the flu so we checked into a 4 star hotel with good service and locked ourselves in the room except to venture out to the pharmacy for various remedies. While it took a week to fully recover from the “Dark Death of India”, we did start to venture out to some of the impressive historical buildings and sights after a couple of days.

Inside the Hagia Sofia

The Hagia Sophia, first constructed between 324-337 AD by Constantine and reconstructed in the 4th and 5th centuries before being converted to a Mosque during the Ottoman period is one monstrous building with extremely high ceilings (over 40 m). There are incredible tile mosaic pictures of Christ and Mother Mary and massive buttressed domes that go on and on. It was a church for about 900 years and then a mosque for over 480 years.

The Blue Mosque is one of the most famous Turkish and Islamic World. It has 6 minarets that make it look like a Disneyland castle. We were not able to see the blue inside however as they were praying at the time we visited. The Theodosius Obelisk is a dramatic monument erected in 390AD. This was quite the engineering feat to get it standing upright. Not sure what will happen in the event of an earthquake as the supports at the bottom don’t look too robust.

The Topkapi Palace, built by one of the Sultans in the 1400s is situated on immense grounds overlooking the Bosphorous. The palace goes on and on, with many examples of tiled buildings dedicated to a particular period or a battle. There are several galleries loaded with gifts from various periods to various Sultans, diamonds, rubies, gold and silver, weapons abound. Also included in a Muslim display of sacred relics are apparently the staff of Moses and the arm of John the Baptist (research by us to determine whether to believe it or not has not yet been done).

The Archeological Museum is stunning with sarcophagi dating back over 2000 years. Turkish history just leaves you spellbound thinking of how many times different empires have ruled this area and how many different religions have dominated over time. Relics from the Persian civilization of Anatolia, Hellenistic-influenced Roman era sculptures and the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great were quite something to see.

Underground in the cistern

And now the engineering part if the tour! Ben and I went to the Basilica Cistern. Istanbul has several underground cisterns beneath the old city. This underground water reservoir was built between 527-565 AD by Justinanus the 1st and was the largest reservoir in the city. The forest of stone columns (336) and brick arches is very impressive even to the non-engineer, in fact even an architect would like this with the soft orange mood lighting and figures of Medusa’s head on a couple of the columns. Water levels fluctuated seasonally and water was distributed through a series of stone on the eastern wall.

Other highlights of Istanbul were the Egyptian Spice Bazaar, cruising the Bosphorous ( which links the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea and is the dividing line between Europe and Asia) and the many Turkish restaurants. Later in the week we did find the opportunity to sample the local food which is quite tasty. The people are friendly and feisty and the hawkers do go away if told to, unlike India where they stick to you like glue for blocks until you yell at them.

Our time in Turkey went fast and due to our health we had to change our plans to venture out of Istanbul to other parts of Turkey. However, we would highly recommend a trip to Turkey for stunning beauty, incredible history and warm hospitality. Next time we would like to travel to places like Gallipoli and Ephesus and really delve into the history and landscapes. We left for Greece, healthy and quite happy that we had for at least a week, experienced Turkey.

Dave a.k.a the bathroom monitor

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