Upon arriving at our hotel yesterday, we had thought that someone from the tour would have contacted us to confirm a pick-up time for this morning; however, we just went off of what our itinerary said. It was very trusting of us and of the tour company to assume we would pay attention to it. π
So, it was nice to be free to sleep in a bit, but I was still awake at 4:30…why? Who knows….
Anyway, we made it to the lobby in time and waited in hopes that someone would show up. A bus arrived and we piled in with a random collection of people. The bus took us across the sea to a meeting point, where it was a rather crazed Chinese-fire-drill like activity of moving people to different buses based on their activity for the day and language of the tour. When our English-speaking bus was put together for the Old CIty tour, we headed back across the sea towards our original location to visit the sights in the area.
Strangely, we were on a bus for the tour, but most of it could have been walked in about half the time…No mind…we had a very entertaining tour guide for the day, which was a stark contrast to our guide the previous eight days. π
Our first stop was to the Blue Mosque or otherwise known as the Sultan Ahmet Mosque. It was quite impressive inside.
Next came a quick walk through the old Hippodrome of Constantinople where chariot races like in Ben Hur were held. Now, it’s a long walkway with obelisks in the middle. From there we walked over to the Hagia (aya) Sophia. It was originally a basilica, then became a mosque and is now a very impressive looking museum.
Sadly, the Grand Bazaar was closed today – being Sunday – so we had to make do with a tourist trap shopping center (mall as it was called). We had some ‘fun’ looking at jewelry, but didn’t buy anything as I have caught on to their schemes of marking up pieces… π
We headed to lunch, but it was another sad showing of food to which we are starting to rebel against…. After lunch, we stopped at the Rustem Pasha Mosque, which is “more blue than the blue mosque” according to our guide. It is true, there were a ton of Iznik tiles of blue.
Our last stop was the Topkapi Palace, which is right next to our hotel, so we were free to head home whenever we finished. The palace was not overly impressive, but their collection of jewels and the third (?) largest diamond was definitely the envy of many a diamond-loving-woman who passed by!
After a bit of a rest in the hotel we headed out again to check out a bit Iskilal Street on the other side of the sea and the more central part of Istanbul that is away from the touristy area. We found a good place for dinner and then stopped at the famous chain, House Cafe, for dessert and coffee. It was sooooo wonderful to be away from the tourists and people harassing tourists and just act like a ‘local’ for a while. We are going to go back again on our free day to shop and enjoy it more again.
Thus ended our second evening in Istanbul! π
-T π
