Istanbul Day 2

We started with the Topkapi Palace first thing this morning because we’re near the end of Ramadan and there would be more visitors in the afternoon than in the morning.

The Topkapi Palace was built in 1460 by the Ottomans when they conquered Constantinople. It is now a museum.

Hagia Irene is a church built inside the Topkapi palace grounds, that was not converted into a mosque. It is now used as a museum and concert hall.

We toured the kitchens and learned about Sharbat which is a precursor to our Sorbet. It was a sweet liquid drink, served from fancy jars like this one.

Islamic art is mostly geometric as depictions of people and nature is forbidden.

The treasury was closed for renovations, but we visited the armory which exhibited two treasures, the Topkapi dagger which was featured in the movie Topkapi and the 86 caret Spoonmaker’s diamond.

We visited the Grand Bazaar for about 45 minutes, just walking through it, not buying or pricing anything. It was cleaner than I expected and the alleyways were a bit wider, and the merchandise was what you’d find in a western tourist store. Lots of jewelry, carpet and Turkish sweets.

The bazaar had these water fountains in it from the days when it was a working market for the local people. They still work.

We went on a two hour boat tour of the Bosporus Strait. It was still a pretty nice day out, a bit windy, but tomorrow will be overcast, windier and cooler. The departure point is a one minute walk from our hotel.

We didn’t have time to visit Galata Tower on this trip, you could spend quite a bit of time in Istanbul seeing all the history, but we did see it from the boat.

The boat turned around just before getting a good view of Rumeli Fortress which is now a museum. We didn’t visit it either. There is enough to see in the Istanbul area to come back for.