webcowgirl

jessicac and nitoda have prodded me in the right way & thanks to everyone who did say they read but didn't comment ...

Anyway, yesterday we did our best to run ourselves, but got our timings wrong due to not knowing when prayer time was & getting to the Blue Mosque at exactly the wrong time. So it was tram then tube up to a big section of the city walls, then over to the Chora Church, which is described in one guidebook as having the best preserved Byzantine mosaics in the world. I was disappointed to discover they were actually created around 1300: I thought I was going to see some _really_ old stuff. Almost all of the center room was mosaic free - but covered with beautiful marble - and the three side rooms were 1/3 fresco & 2/3 mosaic, but again the mosaics looked decimated, half to 2/3 removed. The carvings a the tops of the pillars were also defaced - literally at the decorations that had faces had them whacked off. It was a lovely space, though not as nice as Ravenna. Whoda thunk National Geographic would be giving me my hot travel tips?

On the way back up through the neighborhood to the walls, I has what I would consider my 2nd negative experience with the locals: a bunch of street kids came up to us & started hassling us & wouldn't leave. Things got nasty & one of the kids tossed a bucket of water at us. Then one of the local adults came up to them and started yelling at them. It made me not enjoy all the walking we were doing; I felt exposed. Also, my calves & my lower back ache from all of this walking. We never managed to really master the public transportation system here.

Several changes later, we were back to the Blue Mosque, and this time we actually got to go in. It was much airier than Aya Sofia, with a big window overlooking the sea of Marmara and lots of low hanging lights. The blue and white floral tiles were lovely, but it was far more white than blue. The four elephantine pillars holding up the body of the structure were also quite remarkable.

Then the sun was setting. We headed back to the hotel for a bit of reading & tea, then went to the Egyptian/Spice Market. Since we kept going to these things around closing time, I can't say we got a real "flavor" for it, but I did get some pistachios and cinnamon sticks and dried mango.

We then walked across the lower level of the Galata Bridge, where we were hustled for dinner (yeah the view of the water was great but I still don't eat fish) and I saw the truly amusing sight of a sardine flying up into the night sky, far over our heds; a man fishing from the bridge had caught him. We also walked through the very frash fish market at the other side of the bridge. Since I didn't want to buy anything, there wasn't much point to being there, so we headed up the hill (via the funicular), grabbed dinner, and called it a night.

Today I was feeling a bit unmotivated & our big event was going to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum
, which I'd been warned was quite large & possibly overwhelming. We went to the ancient Middle Eastern section & plunged ourselves into Assyrian, Mesopotamian, Babylonian etc (more than I'd heard of) civs to our hearts' content. I was thrilled to see the lions from the gates of Babylon (I think) and creeped out by the eyeless, fat sphinxes from Nimrud (?). However, we weren't able to really devote much brain power to the rest of the museum, though really I've seen enough Roman portrait sculpture to hold me & ditto for funeral stelae. Still, the Alexander Sarcophagus was briliant, but I was pissed that the snake head of the twisted Delphic column (now in the old Hippodrome just next to the Blue Mosque, which I saw yesterday when we were left hanging early in the day) was off in Paris.

The rest of the day was a bit of a bust - we tried to go see the Turkish military band but wound up in a cemetary instead of in the park we were aiming for (totally couldn't figure out where we were on the map), we got to the Galata tower shortly after sunset, and then I realized most of my energy was gone & I didn't have motivation to do much of anything. Forget climbing all those stairs, forget getting overheated in an overpriced hammam ... I was feeling done for the trip. I rallied long enough to buy a few souvenirs - soap, towels, & a trivet - then went back to the hotel by way of a Turkish BBQ. And we just finished playing Carcasonne. Time to pack, I think. A few pix are up at www.twitpic.com/photos/webcowgirl for them what's interested.

Due to my very late start (I couldn't sleep due to drinking tea too late in the day), we only made it out of the hotel at 1 PM today; I'm on vacation, dammit, I want to be well-rested every day. So the Blue Mosque was passed over in favor of four hours in Topkapi Palace, built in 1478 and pleasingly close to out hotel given the spitting rain. We went immediately for the harem and were rewarded (given the weather) with no lines at all.

I found the time there very thought-inducing. I only found out a few days ago that it was entirely populated with Christian slaves, some of them stolen from as far away as Cornwall; and despite some lovely decorations, the whole thing just seemed like a blue and white tiled prison, with bars and locks to keep the inmates inside. There was a platform where the food was left for the inhabitants, and it reminded me of nothing so much as a slop trough for the pigs, I felt like that was how they were seen, little breeding animals trapped and used at will, only valued (maybe) if she were mother to a son. What kind of atmosphere was that to live in, always subservient, always fighting for power or being trampled on, success determined by skill at subterfuge? How many women killed themselves? Hearing of the power weilded by the sultan's mother was depressing; the whole thing seemed like a program for growing mass-murderers and people who believed in their right to trample others beneath their feet.

Um, yeah, but there were some pretty tiles, and a small room for the sultan's mother that must have seen huge compared to the other women's cells, and a few private rooms that made me think of Oriental-inspired rooms I've seen here & there (esp the castle in Cardiff), and some nice stained glass - and bars across every window, and huge locks, and external passageways for the eunuchs. And most of it was dark, dark, dark because there was so little sun today.

We were getting cool and thought we'd warm up in the coffee shop; but the prices were the worst we'd ever seen, so we sucked it up and headed off to the palace treasury. And we got colder and colder in all of these unheated rooms, and everything started looking the same ("Oh, another medal, oh, another jewel encrusted Koran cover), so we thought we'd make a last pass through the palace kitchens & leave - but they were closed for restoration, so we ran back to the hotel & put on sweaters & had some tea to warm up before going out for a very very late lunch (4:30 local time).

Afterwards all I could think of was getting & staying warm, so we decided to go to a hamam near the Grand Bazaar. We of course stopped in, but it was odd - whereas the Moroccan Souk was all full of little craftsmans' shops, this was like an antiques mini-mall, really well divided, clean, and a bit dull. My favorite thing was watching the guys running around to the various stands with little handled tea trays - you could hear the clinking of the glasses all through the market. But I hate bargaining when I have no idea what anything is worth, so we did not a drop of shopping.

Instead we blew our money at the Cemberlitas Hamam, which promised a bath, a scrub, a soak, and a half hour massage for (mumble mumble mumble). And they accepted credit cards. The whole thing was pleasant and the kind of thing I wish I could so every week. I started lying on a towel on a heated circular rock, got overheated, poured cold water on my head, and basically warmed up & waited for my scrub. The Turkish grandma who finally came (it was about a 30 minute wait tho I'd been told 10 - was worried about leaving J hanging) sloughed my skin off with long strokes of a loofa, then poured water on me to sluice the skin goop away, then gave me a bubble scrub. After she rinsed the soap off, she took me to a marble alcove & washed my hair. After I was nice & clean I went and sat in the jacuzzi for a while; but at 35c, I was feeling too warm in the water and wanted to head on to the massage.

Now the massage was great, well-trained masseuses & proper tables. She covered me with 3 towels and started on my feet, working over my legs, my back, my shoulders, my arms, my hands & my neck with a lavender scented oil. I think she might have even softened up the knot in my right rhomboid that's been twinging in the morning. It was lovely. Despite my worries, J finished at almost exactly the same time as me. We sipped pomegranate juice for a while then went out for a light dinner. Really, it was a great night.

Positives: fireplace, cheap tea, fresh baklava, wifi.
Negatives: hotel cat kneading J's sweater, getting baklava juice on my phone screen (the Eee won't work with the firewall)

So after a modestly busy day we're back chilling at the hotel, trying to make the incredibly important decision Where shall we go to dinner and can we find a place with live Turkish music? I'm having some motivation issues due to being 2/3rds through my Sookie Stackhouse book. Obviously my schedule's also totally messed up because it's only 4:20 UK time & not really time for dinner. But it is time for evening prayers; there are three guys singing the call outside my window. It sounds really cool.

I should probably write about my day while I can, or to delay so I can enjoy the fireplace. We got up around 10, had a yummy breakfast, then finally got motivated to see the Aya/Hagia Sofia, which is now a museum & not a mosque. It was a really odd place, truth be told; a large, airy Romanesque brick building (well, cavernous rather than airy, but neither should be possible in brick) that had a bunch of Islamic structures sort of pasted inside just as incongruously as n Egyptian obelisk would be jammed in modern bank's lobby. It mostly felt ... empty. And the mosaics were all stripped away save about 5. I never thought Ravenna would outshine Istanbul, but its little, perfectly preserved churches were like diamonds on velvet, while the Hagia Sofia was like a huge ring that had lost its stone. So it goes.

Then we dashed down the hill, past kebab "salonyi" and Lahmacun Huts and street vendors selling sweet corn, meatball or fresh fish sandwiches, clams (?), roasted chestnuts, fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice, and circular pretzel things, following the tramway until we got to the waterfront, where we bought two tickets for a Bosphorus cruise. We went up to the suspension bridge near the 13th Century fortifications, past palaces old and new(ish), past fishermen and jellyfish, listening to Turkish music, drinking tea, and trying to figure out where we were based on the maps we'd brought with us. It was pleasant & lazy &even though the day was overcast, it was mild out & not raining, so really it was a very pleasant way to while away the day.

We got back to the dock at 4 PM, and we're south enough now that we still had about an hour of light left to us. We walked up the hill, past the busy square of "the New Mosque" (1663 fyi) and up a narrow street full of vendors hawking all kinds of clothing, magically making it to the "Basilica Cistern" when by all rights we should have been lost. I bought some baklava while J waited in line, returning just before he made it to the ticket office. Inside I was having some full-on James Bond flashbacks, but no boating across the (fairly shallow) waters these days; we walked across raised platforms through a forest of 6th century pillars, occasionally getting dripped on. There wasn't really much to see inside but it was tremendously atmospheric & made me want to see more of really old (Byzantine) Istanbul.

Tomorrow we're going to Topkapi palace, and at some point we'll hit the archaeology museum & the Grand Bazaar. I won't be coming back with a carpet, but they do have these gorgeous inlaid glass lampshades I'm totally taken with - no surprise as they are very sparkly indeed. And a hammam - I must go to a hammam. I've got knots in my back that just won't go away, and I suspect the Turkish bath experience would be just the ticket.

Signing off for now ...