We had five nights in Istanbul, our longest stop of the trip so far. This meant we could unpack a little (i.e. allow the contents of our bags to explode all over the apartment). It also means a long blog post I'm afraid, but we've broken it into two parts so you can take a break in between.
With four days we managed to scratch the surface of what there is to see in Istanbul. Just. To allow for naps, playground stops and breaks to relax over a coffee/colouring book we try not to pack too much into each day, so we had to short list what we wanted to see. The sight-seeing highlights for us were Aya Sofya, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern and Topkapi Palace, all of which are just off the Hippodrome.
Aya Sofya was constructed in 537 and is an incredible church that is now a museum. It makes a huge impact in 2012, so it is hard to imagine what people seeing it almost 1500 years ago must have thought. Inside is a huge open space, in which young children can (and did!) have lots of fun while their parents admire the dome and intricate mosaics.
The Blue Mosque, which was built in the early 1600s to rival Aya Sofya (while these competitions seem a bit blokey, they leave us with some amazing places to visit!), has a huge prayer space and courtyard. The interior is beautiful with all the blue tiles, but the exterior is something else entirely. We looked at it from several different perspectives during the day as well as at night and concluded that it is one of the most elegant buildings we have ever seen.
The Basilica Cistern, is a firm favourite for all of us. Eleanor and Leo had loads of fun fish-spotting in the cistern's shallow pools and we were fascinated by the carved stone Medusa heads at the bottom of two columns, one is tilted sideways and the other upside down. Apparently no one knows exactly why they are there or why they are placed at such unusual angles, which makes it all the more interesting.
The Topkapi Palace was home to Sultans for about 400 years and is made up of a number of buildings around four courtyards. It must have been a haven amongst the hustle and bustle of the city, and still is! We had a look at the Treasury... the Sultans liked their bling; most of the treasures involve gold decorated with large emeralds, rubies and/or diamonds. Our favourites are the Topkapi Dagger with three huge emeralds on its hilt and the sparkly Spoonmakers Diamond.
The harem is a beautifully tiled area within the Palace. It was the living quarters of the Sultans' wives (they were allowed up to four), concubines (as many as they could support, with some busy Sultans having 300, although not all at the same time), their children as well as the eunuchs who looked after them. Quite a crowd!
The Hippodrome also dates from Byzantine times; the chariot races would have been the sporting event to see. It is now a paved road with the chariot track clearly visible once you realise what you are looking at (we took our time!). In the past, the centre of the hippodrome was decorated with many statues (more blokey competitions!) most of which are gone now, although there are three columns and a fountain remaining. One of these is an Egyptian obelisk carved in the 1500s BC and brought to Turkey about 2000 years later. Wow!
We thought it would be fun to take a boat trip on the Bosphorus, where Europe meets Asia. It was interesting enough to see Istanbul from the massive strait, but not overly exciting.
We also visited three bazaars; the Spice Bazaar (mostly food), the Grand Bazaar (anything and everything in a lovely old building) and the Arasta Bazaar (arts and crafts). We liked the Arasta Bazaar most and could have bought a quite few souvenirs if we had space in our bags. There are some beautiful ceramics, coloured glass light fittings and of course carpets. More on rug shopping in part two.
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