We'd booked off the day to cover the essentials of old Istanbul today. To do this, we employed a highly rated guide named Ali. He met us in our hotel lobby at just after 9:30, and we walked towards the hippodrome area.
Ali had caught my attention not only for his reviews and responsiveness online, but also that he had mentioned he had two kids our age and could identify with kids. When we met in the hotel, he seemed very calm and mature... A nice quality in a guide, but maybe not for the kids??
On the way, we noticed a market had sprung up right near our hotel. Ali said this was a regular market that rotated on schedule throughout the old city. The selection on display had us salivating, and we came up with the plan to come back through there later for tomorrow's picnic lunch up the Bosphorus.
On the way up the road, Ali pulled us across the street to a high end shop that we'd passed a half dozen times already...turns out it was also an art museum that had a huge, empty underground cistern that formed the foundation for the building. The cistern had been converted to a museum and on display was all sorts of models, graphics and a digital movie recreation of the hippodrome. It was a bonus that the museum had this collection on display, as it really helped the kids understand the massive size of the original hippodrome and where it fit in modern Istanbul.
We continued outside and up to the main square that sits on the old middle area of the ancient race track built 1800 years ago. Ali had begun weaving the grand history of the city into the sights, and I was really into it.... Though I could see the girls and Beth's eyes glaze over a bit.
We went through the the gate of the Blue Mosque and since the line was short, we went right up and got ready to go inside.
I was fine in my shorts and t-shirt (since my shorts covered my knees), but the girls had to put on their scarves as well as borrow dresses to cover their tights.
The Blue Mosque is fantastic. The blue mosaics, tiles and stained glass that together help make the nickname for the Blue Mosque are beautiful, but my preference was the Suleymaniye Mosque. This mosque was designed by an apprentice to Sinan the Architect, and I'm not sure that he achieved a better product overall. Still, it is really grand and very impressive.
Ali was short on facts and didn't seem to like the mosque very much - to be fair, it was super busy inside and all the years of socked feet did make the place smell pretty bad (in contrast to the near pristine conditions of Suleymaniye) but I don't think the more recent history of the Ottoman Empire, who conquered the Byzantines and introduced Islam to Istanbul was as interesting to Ali.
I love the silhouette of the Blue Mosque.
Next up, the nearby Aya Sofia (or Hagia Sofya or St. Sofia), the giant Christian church turned Muslim mosque turned museum that is just south of the Blue Mosque.
We sat down as Ali went very deep into the history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the move of the Roman capital to Istanbul (then christened Constantinople after the Emperor that made the move, Constantine). I was fascinated by the story, and when he interwove what was happening globally from a people and religion perspective, it felt like all of the pieces of the puzzle in my head just fell into place. It was fascinating to learn how the Turks were originally a race of people living above China that were essentially forced by the Chinese Great Wall that was always expanding to the West, to eventually attack northern India from the south and Eastern Europe from the north. It explained why seemingly diverse geographies like Finland, Turkey and Korea had similar languages!
While I was getting a lot our of the tour (my mind was literally blown), the kids were getting pretty bored, and Beth's back was getting sore from all the standing around.
Here you can see ancient Christian mosaics, covered up by plaster by the Ottomans when they converted it to a mosque (but luckily not destroyed)....
The kids perked up at our next stop, the giant Roman cistern that was one of five huge Roman-built water repositories that were built and filled with water carried using aqueducts from the nearest river that was over 25 miles away. It's amazing to recall that Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire for just five hundred years, whereas Istanbul was the capital of the Roman (or, to differentiate the two, Byzantine) Empire for around twelve hundred years!
This cistern was very cool and really big - with 336 columns supporting the massive enclosure. The columns were mostly recycled from other pagan buildings of the time, and if you looked closely they all had different widths and styles, with different tops or bottoms. It wasn't until about thirty years ago when they were cleaning this cistern up that they discovered two giant recycled Medusa heads that were used haphazardly as column bases. So cool.
The vibe in the cistern was half eerie, half chill....
It was time to feed the ladies. We walked up to a small local restaurant that Ali recommended. It was full of local business people and had no menu. You simply looked at the back at what was freshly cooked for the day, made your selection then got your bill at the end of the meal. One weird thing about Ali's service.... Beth read one complaint on Trip Advisor about having to pay for the guide's lunch - he responded in the trip advisor comments that it was in the terms and conditions of the contract. Sure enough, the night before I had read that in the email. The way Ali acted at lunch, eating his own little small plate of food at our table while we shared a bunch of plates, and making a point to tell Beth that his meal was actually free, kind of made me feel that he had somehow created an unnecessary complication in his business. We've had so many private guide experiences, and almost without fail, they end up eating alone or in a "guide specific" area during lunch. Sure, you're probably subsidizing their meal, or they're getting a free meal because they're bringing you to a restaurant, but Ali's approach was.... Odd.
I actually started to get quite a bit of information from Ali, but you kind of had to probe a bit. I found out he only does tours 2 to 3 times a week now, while booking out other guides under his company hundreds of others times a year. However when he said why he still did it a few times a week, instead of saying the ready made statement of "because, I love my job!", he said because people expected his name on the reviews of the trip advisor ratings sometimes.... Again, another little oddity in a growing list.
We went to our last stop after lunch, Topkapi Palace. The palace is not what you would expect. When you hear "palace", you might expect grand buildings with spires and opulence, but this was a subtle example of how a palace can be done.
The grounds are huge, with a series of three gateways gradually getting you closer to the residential area where the Ottoman Sultan lived with his harem from 1465 to 1856.
The views from the wall of the palace over the Bosphorus straight to the Asian side of the city were fantastic.
Some of the harem rooms and socializing rooms we saw were beautifully decorated. It reminded us of the Sultan's residences built into the Red Fort in Agra. So cool that seven hours by plane away and two buildings from five hundred years ago could look so similar. But then, why not, they were the same race of people!
At 3:30, our time with Ali was up, though we were not quite done with the palace. It was another oddity, though clearly outlined in the disclaimer. You get through what you get through, from 9:30 until 3:30, but again odd. We have met so many guides and even non-guides over our trip that were able to connect with the entire family and bring the knowledge and enthusiasm that made the experience a great one for the whole family. In some ways, if you're doing the great monuments of ancient Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire, you have to go into the history a bit - no guide could shirk that responsibility. However, though I got a ton of great info out of Ali, both historically and a little of the culture of present day turkey and a lot on religion, he just didn't have what it took to engage Beth and the kids.
They were troopers all day though, and I give them credit for hanging in there, and immediately thanking us after.... So cute.
Reenergized when we started walking back, we stopped in at the market and loaded up with cheese, grapes, olives, apples, salami and bread for tomorrow.
We ate at the little place across the street, where the head waiter made Robin a little rose made out of a napkin.... Neat trick, but I think Abby and Beth were jealous.... Thanks buddy!
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