Istanbul - Part Two

Saturday, November 21st

Day two in Istanbul was jam packed with sites and activities. We started at the Hagia Sophia. As noted in the last post, this is the Byzantine church built by the Romans that was converted to a mosque and is now a museum.

The place was massive. It was much more open than most churches we've seen, which tend to have a lot of columns running through the middle. This place just felt like one gigantic room, probably because it was, and they say the Statue of Liberty can fit inside the dome).

They've left up a lot of the remnants of both Islam and Christianity that remain. The walls were originally covered with Christian mosaics, but were subsequently plastered over by the Muslims. In the conversion to a museum, many of these were found to be in good condition. It was interesting to see the images of Christ on one wall and then turn a corner to see Muslim decor.

The most interesting thing though, I think, was the placement of the altar. In Christian churches at the time, the altar faced east, so that the people were facing Jerusalem. Also, Christ was at the time thought to be returning from the east (based on a piece of scripture), so people wanted to be facing that way just in case! As most know, Muslims are required to face their holy city of Mecca when they pray. Mecca is slightly southeast of Istanbul, which presented a bit of a problem when the church was converted to a mosque. To solve it, they just put the Muslim altar slightly askew in the apse, so if you're looking straight down the middle of the building, the altar is set off slightly to the right.

Our next stop was the Topkapi Palace - the home of the sultans.

This started as a fortress, but over time was turned into a royal palace that was added to by each subsequent ruler until it became a lavish estate. We toured the whole place, and again were blown away at the interior decoration. Every room was covered in ornate, colorful tiles. It is like nothing we've seen anywhere else. This is officially Europe, but when you step into these places, you wouldn't be surprised to see Aladdin walk around the corner!

We toured several different buildings and gardens, all of which were very nice, but our favorite part by far was the harem. The common misconception of a harem is, of course, that it was a den of beautiful young women that were at the disposal of the sultan. In fact, the harem is simply a reference to the sultan's inner household. The harem was full of slave women, but the vast majority were simply servants. He could take up to four wives (usually chosen by his mother), but many took less than that. He was also allowed to have up to four concubines as well, but these were chosen by his mother and wives. This was all done not to simply give him pleasure, but instead to ensure the family dynasty continued. Because of these practices, the same family ruled here from the inception, something that was very rare in time.

So we definitely learned a big lesson about harems!! We got to see several apartments and reception halls and various other parts of the inner palace - all ornately decorated. Jenna just loved all of the beautiful and different tiles throughout the palace! Like the mosques, I wouldn't necessarily say these were more beautiful than other European palaces, but it was just so different that it was a nice change.

We next made a quick stop at an underground cistern - basically a giant well. It is the size of a couple of football fields, and is a large pool filled with columns. It was built by the Romans using columns from existing structures, so each is different. It sits right in the middle of the old town, and was provided water to the Roman citizens. When the Turks took over, they neglected it, but it stayed in fairly good working condition and still provided water to all of the wells in the main part of the city. It was rediscovered in the recent past and turned into a big tourist attraction, good for a look at some interesting old columns and some great photos.

After grabbing a quick lunch, we headed to the Grand Bazaar. This has been around for hundreds of years, and used to sell everything that you can imagine (other than the spices sold at the market down the road). Now, it is heavy on jewellery and souvenirs. The place is gigantic and a maze of shops, so it was fun to just wander around and peek into the shops.

After leaving the market, we headed up to the new town to wander down the main shopping street. On the way, we stopped by one of the other main mosques in town, The Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent. Unfortunately this one is under a major refurbishment so the inside is mostly closed, but the small portion that we did get to see was pretty amazing.

We made it up to the New Town just after sunset, when there were a ton of people out. This is where they had all the major retail chains, which weren't a huge pull for us, but we did enjoy a nice dinner, and it was interesting to see the hundreds of people shopping along the street. This was definitely the place to be in the evenings.

After dinner we headed off for what turned out to be the highlight of the day, and probably the trip - the Turkish Bath. We'd heard this was a great experience, but weren't exactly sure what to expect. We showed up and split off to our separate areas (there is a small amount of nudity involved, so they split the sexes). It was essentially the same for both of us, but Jenna did get a little extra massage at the end. Here is a brief description of what happens:

You go into a private room to change clothes and put on a towel, and then make your way to the bath. There is a large round heated marble slab in the middle of a very warm and steamy room, and surrounding the slab are several small sinks. You sit next to a sink and use a small bowl to pour hot water all over yourself. Once you're all warmed up and relaxed, you go over to lay on the slab and wait to be scrubbed. After laying for a short time a large Turkish man (or woman for Jenna) who speaks absolutely no English tells you to come over. Since he can't tell you where to lay or what to do, he pretty much throws your body around into the right position. He then proceeds to scrub your body with a coarse rag and soapy water, and then gives you a quick massage. It was by far the most interesting and foreign experience we've had since we've been in Europe, and it felt amazing. Definitely something to experience at least once in your life!!! For a reference, here is a picture from the website of what the bath looks like:

After the bath, we were completely relaxed and ready to fall into bed, so we stumbled back to the hotel and collapsed into an amazingly restful night's sleep.