This morning’s tour began at the Blue Mosque or Sultanahmet Mosque. (Link to Blue Mosque pictures - use your back arrow key to return here.)
Next we walked across the Sultanahmet Park and entered Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Divine Wisdom. (Link to Hagia Sophia pictures - use your back arrow key to return here.)
We left Hagia Sophia and crossed the tram tracks to enter the 532 AD underground Roman cistern. The Romans built an aqueduct to bring water from the hills 19 km away and stored the water in large, underground cisterns. The Muslims, when they discovered them, had them drained because they believe that standing water is dirty. (This is also why most of our hotels before the Crowne Plaza and the gulet do not have stoppers in their sinks. This makes it difficult to hand wash clothes! Next trip, we will pack a stopper, just in case.) The cistern is supported by 19 rows and 14 columns of marble pillars that are eight meters high. The columns were taken from other buildings and some are Doric and some are Corinthian and two are much skinnier that the rest and are supported on other marble slabs to make them eight meters tall. The last two are sitting on carvings of Medusa - snakes for hair, stone eyes, hence the blue evil eye superstition. The cistern now has about two feet of water and a raised walkway and some lighting to allow tourists to see it. Murat told us he used to bring his dates to this cistern, rent a canoe and paddle around in the dark! (Link to further information about the Roman Cistern - use the back arrow key to return here.)
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Fish in the cistern |
Medusa on her head
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Medusa on the side of her face |
We ate lunch at the Pudding Shop near the Cisterna. It was cafeteria style and we finally got real good Turkish food. We ate stuffed eggplant or zucchini with cheese and mashed potatoes on top, mixed veggies of eggplant, tomatoes and mushrooms, rice and dessert. Marge even found a slice of fudgy chocolate cake on her tray!
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The Pudding Shop
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Back on our bus, we rode to the Kariye Museum, which was a Greek church (Church of the Holy Savior in Chora), then a mosque, and is now a museum with the finest examples of mosaic religious art so far uncovered. The restoration of the church was done by Americans in only 10 years, from 1938 to 1948. The mosaics on the ceilings and upper walls that are mostly complete, depict the life of Jesus and the life and genealogy of Mary. Some of the scenes include Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents; the three Magi; nativity; the Old Testament stories of angels appearing to man; the census and the journey to Bethlehem; etc. The mosaics are spectacular. (Links to further information about the Kariye Museum: Link 1; Link 2 - use the back arrow key to return here.)
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Exterior of museum
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Frescos
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Frescos |
Frescos
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Frescos |
Frescos |
Frescos
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Interior room
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Different marbles |
Mirror slices of marble
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Dinner tonight was at a nightclub called Karavansary. The entertainment was four belly dancers, three folk dancers (the Turkish Cossacks were very good), a singer, and a comedian with audience participation. The food was good but the belly dancing was a little unusual for an Elderhostel culture tour!
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Belly dancing - hand-held camera in a dark room
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Belly dancing - hand-held camera in a dark room |
Wednesday - 9/16 – Istanbul to Kusadasi
Today we packed up and flew from Istanbul to Izmir (ancient Smyrna). We rode in another big bus south toward Kusadasi. On the way we passed all kinds of agriculture. Nursery trees, figs, oranges, olives, corn, cotton, tobacco (brought here from America), etc. The land is very picturesque.
We stopped for lunch at another carpet wholesaler. Lunch was served out of doors on a grass lawn under huge red pine trees. They must have been over 300 years old. Lunch was delicious. I think I ate a whole platter of sautéed eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes.
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Lunch site
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After lunch we watched the demonstration of how Turkish carpets are made. We saw two young women knotting (double knots) intricate patterns, saw how silk thread is gotten from the cocoon, and saw the dyeing process. It was the same process that we saw two weeks earlier, but it is interesting to see how it all is done. (Link to further information about Turkish carpets - use the back key to return here.)
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Tools of the trade |
Silk worms
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Dye vats
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We were treated to Turkish coffee, tea, or raki while we saw the beautiful carpets rolled out in front of us. |
We finally headed to Kusadasi and our hotel for the next two nights. The Hotel Charisma is another five-star hotel (by their own designation). Our rooms are not large but the swimming pool and boardwalk along the Aegean are spectacular. We may never have enough time to set foot out there!
After a 1½ hour rest we got back on the bus and went to dinner at the marina. It was a beautiful evening to sit outside and have a leisurely meal. The main course was fish - bream - and it was served whole.
Looks like another short night and a full day tomorrow.
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