Sultanahmet

Our second day started with us sleeping in until 9AM. I really enjoyed it because I still can't fall asleep until after 2AM. We rushed to get breakfast before 10 when the restaurant closes, even before we had our morning coffee. There were many choices for breakfast, and it was filling. We had some cereal, fruits, salads, pastries, cheese, coffee and juice. Their lunch meat was questionable, so we passed on that. We decided on our plan for the day. We were going to go to the old town, Sultanahmet, have a Turkish coffee and then visit the Blue Mosque and Ayasofya.

We got the directions from the hotel lobby personnel. Since we are staying in the center, we are very close to the main bus and taxi station. I don't think I saw more taxi's even in the New York city. And they slow down next to you if you appear to them that you might need some transportation and honk or call you from the car. We walked around until our bus scheduled time (it runs every 30 min). It took us about 20 min to get to the other side of town to Sultanahmet.The bus was not crowded, but it got a bit hot, since it was already passed noon. Without our coffee, we were dragging our feet to find a nice place to sit down. From the main bus station in Sultanahmet, Beyazit, we walked some 300 m toward the area where we wanted to sight see. We wanted a nice coffee place with a view of the Marmara sea and a garden, so we walked until we found one. We went through some back streets that only have shoe and leather shops. There must have been 30 of them, and the entire street smelled like leather. This was not a touristy area, only locals were there, and I noticed that there were very few women on the street. It was a nice break, or start, to get some caffeine in.

From there, we were already on the main square where all the places to see were. We walked around the Hippodrome, the Stadium of ancient Byzantium where the chariot races used to be. Of the monuments from all corners of the empire which once decorated it, only three remain: the Obelisk of Theodosius from 390 AD, a bronze sculpture of three entwined serpents from Delphi from 4th c.AD, and the column of Constantine from 10th c.AD.

Then we visited the Blue Mosque, built between 1609-1616, and named that way because of the blue tiles used on the interior walls. They have a special entrance for all the tourists, so as to not disturb people who come there to pray five times a day. They handed us scarfs to cover our bare legs, and plastic bags to put the shoes in, which we had to take off. The tourists are separated from the praying folks just by a rail, so we still got to see all the areas. I don't remember when I was inside another mosque to compare, but this one was very large.

Outside of the mosque is a beautiful park with a large water fountain. On the other side is the Ayasofya. It was built as a church by Constantine the Great in (?) and reconstructed by Justinian in the 6th century. It was then converted into a mosque in 1453 with the arrival of the Ottoman empire. Most of the frescoes were plastered over at that time. In the late 1800s or early 1900s it was converted into a museum, and the restoration of the frescoes started. It is still in progress, and some of the images are still partially covered. We saw some pictures of pope JPII when he visited it in 1979, pope Benedict in 2006, and president Obama just couple of months ago. Its massive dome, 50 meters high and 32 meters wide, with four minarets, just like the Blue Mosque, still dominates the skyline of the old Istanbul. It was interesting to see some pictures that showed people gathered there for prayer; it looked like entire village was there.

By the time we were done touring, it was already around 5 PM, and we were a bit hungry. We found this beautiful park, with super high trees, and nice grass. To our surprise, there were some wild parrots there as well. Many locals were there, having a picnic with their families. I found that to be so nice, particularly since it was a weekday evening. We ate our two sandwiches there, and relaxed in the shades a bit. This break showed us that we were really tired, and we made our way back to the hotel, where we had coffee in our room. Mom then went for a swim at the pool on the roof, and I found this Internet cafe.

The hotel lobby people told us of a restaurant that opened just today around the corner, called Istanbul, so we went there for the opening night. The waiters were all so ready to help, every few minutes they were around us. They served us 'mezze' before we even ordered anything. They still don't license to sell alcohol, but after seeing our disappointment they brought two beer glasses later during the dinner, covered with napkins. We had nice lamb kabobs, with two types of salad. At the end they brought us complimentary rice pudding. We had so much fun there, and were really pampered. We left the restaurant after 11 PM.

We had to walk it off, so we again strolled down the packed main pedestrian street. We checked out a few side streets, and were surprised to find outside restaurants all next to each other and packed with people having dinner, mezze or just drink. The day activity here doesn't stop until well after midnight.