Istanbul Day 1

We took our first trip this past weekend to Istanbul and it definitely exceeded my expectations. The city is absolutely beautiful and filled with an immense amount of history and culture.

We left for Istanbul on Friday morning at 3a.m. arriving at our hostel around 7:30. We ate some breakfast, dropped off our bags, and met our tour guide. The tour began around 9:30 at the Blue Mosque. Our tour guide told us a lot of information about the history of Turkey, the Blue Mosque, and everything in between. The information was interesting but the delivery was incredibly boring; he spoke rather softly and repeated himself often. I think almost everyone dozed off at some point during the day because of it. Anyway, the Blue Mosque was stunning with extremely intricate mosaics and sheer size. I guess it gets its name from the thousands of handmade blue tiles decorate the inside of the mosque.

Blue Mosque, built in 8 years 400 years ago!

Dome structure of Blue Mosque

Our next stop was “across the street” to the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia was first built in 360 AD and has been rebuilt twice due to fires and the dome collapsing. It was first built as a church, then it was converted into a mosque, and now it is a museum. Ironically, from Istanbul, there is only an 8 degree difference between Jerusalem and Mecca so converting it from a church to a mosque only required minor adjustments. However, during the conversion, all the Christian mosaics were covered in plaster. Fortunately, many were able to be uncovered, revealing incredible works of art. It was fascinating to see two religions, like Christianity and Islam, coexisting in one place, each represented by their own symbols and artifacts. Being there really made me wish that I had a greater knowledge of the history of Islam and Christianity and how they relate to one another.

Hagia Sophia

View from the Empress's balcony

We then went to the Basilica Cistern which is a huge underground water reservoir that used to provide Istanbul with its water supply. Now, it is open to tourists who can walk around and look at the giant columns holding up the ceiling. Two of these columns have a carved out image of Medusa’s head at the base and nobody really knows why.

Basilica Cistern

Medusa's Head

After, we went to Topkapı Palace. This palace was used by the Ottoman Sultans for more than 400 years. There were many ancient artifacts on display in the palace including: clothes, jewelry, and other items belonging to the royal families, an 86 carat diamond, vast amounts of weapons, Moses’ staff, a footprint from Muhammad, and many other religious items. The view from the terrace wasn’t too bad either…

Next on our list was the Grand Bazaar, where everyone was itching to spend their money. I think it was a very successful day for everyone. We all bought various gifts and things to bring home (myself included) and had a lot of fun bargaining for better prices. It was pretty overwhelming at first and I am sure that we didn’t see more than half of it (because there are over 3000 some odd shops) but I was surprised that there weren’t more people. I was expecting almost shoulder to shoulder shopping but there was actually a lot of room to move around. The Spice Bazaar, located down the street from the Grand Bazaar, was also very cool. We all got to try samples of Turkish delight (a gummy candy type thing made out of honey and other favors) and apple tea. Needless to say, we spent some more money here as well. After an exhausting day touring Istanbul we went back to our hostel, ate some food, and hung out by the water for a bit; watching the boats pass by and admiring the lit up skyline.

Entrance at gate 1 of 7

Famous Turkish spices

Hopefully I will post day 2 in Istanbul tomorrow (possibly in less detail).