Musings From the Road

OK, now for more from Istanbul. We took the streetcar to the Spice Market which is near the New Mosque, which is far from new, constructed in 1597. It’s newer than the Blue, but not as large as the Sultan’s Mosque.

I have a few photos from the mosque, but we mainly went in order to see the Spice Market. There are more than spices there, some kitchen goods and fresh fish to go with the spices. The number of spices is staggering, and the colors are amazing.

Courtyard of the New Mosque

You need bowls for all the olives and dates.

From the Spice Market we hopped a couple streetcars to go to the Grand Bazaar, an amazing place. It’s a rabbit-warren of vaulted hallways. Each type of product has it’s own area for sales. The clothes are in one, fabrics in another, lamps in a third, and so on. Deliveries are made on the backs of porters who wait at the bazaar entrances for work carrying goods into the shops in the market. One of the most unique shops was the one for Gramophone Baba, an old man that has probably the largest collection of gramophones in the world. He repairs them and sells them. There’s probably not a lot of business anymore, but he was still there, and alive in 2013.

We often went to the Blue Mosque at night, generally around 10 PM, because the crowds were small and the temperature had moderated. At night the Sultan Ahmet Park, between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque would be filled with families enjoying the coolness and the grassy spaces. Kids playing, parents and grandparents gathered to talk and watch the kids. You never felt unsafe.

The Blue Mosque is unique in that it has 6 minarets, most only have 4. The columns of the mosque are huge, 12-15 feet in diameter. The interior is covered in decorative tiles and geometric patterns. As with all mosques you need to remove your shoes at the door. The floors are all carpeted or tiled and cleaned daily so you won’t get your feet dirty. It’s religious practice to wash your feet, if you’re barefoot, before entering so don’t fret the small stuff. You put your shoes in a cubby at the door and they are there when you come out. No one will steal them.

This is the framework that holds the ring of lights

We wanted to put “boots on the ground” in Asia while we were here, so we took a sightseeing cruise up the Bosporus to the mouth of the Black Sea to the town of Poyruz on the Asian side of the straights. We had about 15 minutes to grab something to eat and drink and get back on the boat for the return trip. You get a great idea of the size of Istanbul and the large number of mosques in the city. You get to see several palaces that are now museums but we couldn’t go to them because of the demonstrations against the government in Taksim Square. We could see the smoke from the fires being set by the demonstrators who were against a decree from Erdogan to take over the park for development. This was the start of the campaign against his increasingly dictatorial rule. He appealed to the Islamic fundamentalists in order to entrench his power. He was not a religious person, just using religion as a means to gain and ensure power.

The Romans weren’t the only ones to steal Egyptian obelisks to decorate their squares.

Smoke from the fires. We figured it was from police cars.

The Dolhambahce Sarayi, (Dolhambric Palace). This may have been the one built by the Sultan to warehouse his mother or mother-in-law. Kept her out of his business