Istanbul, continued

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

The last two days in Istanbul have been very interesting indeed. On Wednesday morning, I ventured over to the Grand Bazaar. This was much bigger than the Spice Bazaar I had seen earlier, and every section held a different type of merchandise. What was interesting was that parts of it almost felt like a Western mall, with expensive jewelry stores housed in modern looking store spaces, right next to older shops selling local trinkets and food. Either way, the pace of the place was frantic:

Outside of the Grand Bazaar another notable mosque in Istanbul: the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent. Suleyman was known as one of the greatest sultans of the Ottoman Empire; under him, the empire reached its greatest extent, stretching into Eastern Europe, towards Germany. The mosque dedicated to him is just as grand as the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque:

The last picture shows the floor of the mosque. Each of those red spots on the carpet represents a spot where a person can pray. As there is a lot of kneeling and bowing involved in a Muslim prayer service, this allows for control of spaces and numbers of people in the mosque, which can reach into the thousands in the bigger mosques.

This mosque also contains a graveyard, in which several notable sultans (including Suleyman) are entombed. I got to see these tombs as well:


The first tomb is of Suleyman the Magnificent. The second is of Hurrem Sultan, who was the favorite concubines of Suleyman. Originally named Roxalana, and coming from what is today the Ukraine, Hurrem Sultan is one of the only concubines that was able to actually marry a sultan. Suleyman was very much infatuated with Hurrem Sultan, and as a result she was able to have a very noticeable influence on his ruling of the Ottoman Empire. She bore Suleyman 5 children, one of whom (Selim) became the next sultan of the Empire.

After this, I walked towards the Istanbul University, opposite yet another mosque, the Beyazit Mosque. I didn't go inside this one, as a prayer service was going on then. I did capture a video of the Muezzin's call though. As mentioned in the previous post, this call had a more sing-song like quality than the ones in Morocco:

After this, I met up with Ben at the hotel, and we decided to head over to the Beyoglu section of Istanbul. This is north of the area of Sultanahmet and Old Istanbul, across the Golden Horn. We took a tram across the Galata Bridge, and made our way to the Galata tower. This is a tower built as part of a citadel by the Genoese, when they were building their presence in Constantinople. One can see all of Istanbul from the top of the tower:

The following day, we made our way over to the Hagia Sophia, to go inside. The inside was really amazing, a mixture of different religions, cultures, and designs within a gigantic building. There was a lot of scaffolding up in one spot, but that didn't take away from appreciating the building's scale and history:


After this, we walked across the street to the Basilica Cistern. This place was truly amazing. Built during the Byzantine Empire to bring water to the area during the summer and in times of siege, it was later consecrated as a basilica. It fell into ruin until the modern period, when it was restored and opened up. Today, it still has water flowing through it, and the effect of the water and the lighting make it a truly eerie and awesome experience:

The second picture shows a medusa head; there are two of these that serve as bases of columns in the cistern. Why they were placed there, and why one is on its side, and one is upside down is still a mystery to modern archaeologists.

We then went over to the Topkapi Palace. This was the home and state palace of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire, and it sits in a large park, overlooking the Bosphorus. It was quite grand, and interesting to see the rooms in which the sultans lived, and received state visitors from all over the world. Also interesting was the Harem of the palace, which was in a separate section, and required a separate fee.


Some pictures of the Harem:


That's it for now. More coming in one more post on Istanbul...