Port 49 Istanbul, Turkey

by Ed · Published April 20, 2022 · Updated April 20, 2022

Merhaba!

We had a late-morning arrival in Istanbul on Apr 15th, 2022. As this is an exciting port to see, the ship arranged to have one of our guest lecturers, Jennifer Eremeeva, speak about Istanbul, its history, and the variety of mosques and other structures we will see as we pull in to the port. That’s our cruise director, Leslie Jon, standing near her.

This is the Asian side of Istanbul. We will not be going over there. But they have a very tall TV tower that starts over 700 feet above sea level and soars an additional 843 feet up! It had a rotating restaurant, but it is supposedly now closed.

This is the European side of Istanbul and is the old town part. The two big mosques you see here are the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Mosque) on the left, and the Hagia Sofia Mosque (Aya Sofia or St Sofia Mosque) on the right. Did you know there are over 3,000 mosques in Istanbul alone?

This is the bridge connecting Asian Istanbul to European Istanbul over the Bosphorus Strait. The Bosphorus leads to the Black Sea.

There is a curious little island in the middle of the Bosphorus. The legend has it that a maiden was deathly afraid of snakes. Her father built her this little place to stay so no snakes could get to her. Friends would come over to visit and bring food for picnics. One friend brought a basket of grapes. When she opened the basket a snake jumped out and bit the maiden and she died. There’s a moral in there somewhere!

Up ahead of us we see the dock we’re heading for. The Norwegian Jade is already in ahead of us. This is the new town part of European Istanbul. Got it? Old Town and New Town are separated by the river known as the Golden Horn. European and Asian parts are separated by the Bosphorus Strait.

I am surprised by how much our tug boat looks like a gun boat with its water cannons!

We pull up to a beautiful city-side dock! People are dining at restaurants on the other side of the white wall. We learn the black rails for the stairwells (you can see on the left end of the photo) are removable, and the white walls pivot down so they are flat, and the entire dock is available for pedestrians when ships are not in port. This facility is beautiful and was just opened last October!

We have an excursion, actually two excursions, today! Shortly after docking we are cleared and head to the buses! Our first tour is either the Hagia Sofia or the Archeological Museum, the Cistern, the Rustem Pasha Mosque, and the Spice Market. As it turns out, Turkish President Erdogan decided to come to Istanbul today to pray with the locals at Hagia Sofia, so we’ll be going to the Museum instead.

On our way to our first stop I captured a few interesting buildings, in case we have time to wander.

All of the roads in the Old Town side of Istanbul are cobblestone, many with more decor than just the centerline. It’s a nice look, but noisy and sometimes rough to walk on.

There is also a nice tram system to get around town! Only costs about $1 to ride. This is only on the European side. The Asian side actually has a subway system! By the way, the Turkish Lira has suffered and is now worth about $0.07! That’s about 15 lira to the dollar. It used to be 5 to the dollar!

Our first stop is to visit the city’s Cistern system. The main cistern is closed for maintenance, so we get to come to the 2nd cistern.

The cistern is no longer used as water storage, so it is available for visitors and as a venue for celebrations! This door was cut into the wall to allow access. When the cisterns were full the water level was above the street!

This is what the cisterns look like now! Beautiful dramatic lighting, cool air ambiance! The floor was added for access. Otherwise the floor would be another 15-20 feet lower. Water used to be to the top of the columns!

I am standing on a platform built for weddings. I can see out the tunnel we entered and see the traffic below me! This cistern used to hold 40,000 cubic meters of water! That’s a little under 9 million gallons. The larger cistern is exactly twice this size. Water was stored in case the city was placed under seige and the natural water supplies were cut off. This was a reasonable expectation given the location of the city and its trade importance!

There is also an art display! A series of about 10 paintings are on display in the niches along the wall.

Above ground Mete, our tour guide, points out this tower. It is the pressure tower for the underground cistern system. I mention this only because anyone walking around Old Istanbul will probably see this odd pile of rocks!

Standing next to the pressure tower is this odd column. The is the Byzantine era post from which the distance of everything is measured around Istanbul, and is called the Milyon Tashi.

It is time for noon prayers and the Turkish President is in the area. The streets are packed! Fortunately we are headed the other direction!

A few minutes later we arrive at the Istanbul Archeology Museum.

This cute guys greets us at the entrance! It looks like he is holding the legs of a rabbit, but the animal’s head is missing.

The displays are organized in a rough timeline. For example, this sculpture is 7th century BC (BCE) and is classified as archaic.

This relief from that same time caught my eye because the people are depicted wearing masks!

Fast forward a few centuries and this relief from the 5th century BC (BCE) is considered classical art.

Then another couple of centuries to 3rd century BC (BCE) we now have hellenic art.

This is Alexander the Great a little later – 1st century BC (BCE). I am only including him because of what comes next!

This is Alexander’s sarcophagus! That is him at the far left of the frieze, wearing a lion’s head helmet. He ordered this to be built, but it was never used for his body.

The museum touts an extensive display on the city of Troy. I am only showing this behemoth wall they have on display. The city of Troy was built and laid waste multiple times. They have items from Troy I to Troy IX on display. But the items are all small to medium, mostly pottery. The wall represents all of the layers of the current site.

Walking down the street to our next stop, I spied this lovely display!

And then this one! Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to engineer these beautiful displays! Stacking cans in the food asiles has nothing over stacking candies on a barrel head!

We arrive at the Spice Market! We have free time to roam and shop! We’re primarily here to see!

But we do taste some pistacchio Turkish Delight and have some very nice tea at this shop!

The spices are beautifully displayed and smell awesome, even through a mask!

They have a surprising array of teas! Check out the one on the bottom right!

Gummy overload!

Then we head over to the Rustem Pasha Mosque for our first mosque visit.

Turkish lesson #2: when a letter has what the French call a cedilla under the letter – the curl under the “S” on the sign below – add the letter “H” after. Rustem Pasa becomes Rustem Pasha. “C” is pronounced as “J”, so “Camii” (mosque) sounds like “Jamee”.

The mosque exterior is wide open and beautiful! The horizontal supports are interesting, and help hold up the exterior wall that now closes off access to the mosque.

We remove our shoes and enter. Wow! There is a fenced off area up front, not shown in this photo, beyond which we aren’t allowed since we aren’t Muslim. We see the central indentation – the mihrab – that marks the direction of Mecca. The pulpit for the imam to deliver sermons – the minbar – is raised on the right side.

I can’t quite reach to the center of the dome from behind the fence, so I settle for this view, which I rather prefer anyway! Beautiful detail across the ceiling!

Our second excursion is “Istanbul by Night”! After a brief pause to catch our breath from the first tour we head out for this one! The plan was to start viewing the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia at sunset, but traffic had other plans. The sun was pretty much down long before we got a mile away from the ship! But I managed to grab this nice silhouette of the Blue Mosque from the waterfront. I’ll talk about that sign in a moment!

We make it to the Hippodrome. This is the area that was used for chariot races during the Roman period, the same as was done in Rome! This 32 meter column marks the southern turning point for the chariots, and has been standing here since it was first built!

Then there is this unlikely vision – an Egyptian column! This is the Obelisk of Theodosius, erected here in one piece in 390 AD (CE)! Beautiful! Jerry, will you decipher the hieroglyphs for me? There are four side of symbols.

We are here in the month of Ramadan. The Muslims are required to fast during the day, so they party after sunset! But we discovered these are not all local Muslims – many of these folks are refugees from the Ukraine!

The Hagia Sofia is pretty at night, but a little disappointing.

The Blue Mosque does a better job lighting everything up! Plus, during the month of Ramadan, they provide a daily reminder. This one reminds the Muslims to help the needy. Thisis the sign we saw in the first silhouette photo.

The second day we’re at it again! Our excursion today takes us to the Blue Mosque – we get to go in! – and to Hagia Sofia – we get to go in there, too! We’ll also go to the Cistern (again) and to the Grand Bazaar!

We arrive at the Blue Mosque! This mosque was converted into a museum in the late 1930s. The Sultan decided it was time the rest of the world had a chance to learn about how the Muslims worshipped! It was a museum with open public access until 2018 when President Erdogan decided to turn is back into a functional mosque.

This is also known as the Sultan Ahmet Mosque.

Once inside we find that it is still undergoing restoration. I snapped this wall before I realized it is just a map of the restoration areas! Another thing you can see in this shot is the dark rows on the carpet. These are the lines the Muslim men stand on, side by side, during prayers and sermons. They have room to prostrate themselves, touching their heads to the floor, during prayers.

Temporary columns and truss bracing fill the area. The men can still come for prayers. But most of the tilework that makes this known as the “Blue” mosque is covered up.

This is the mihrab at the front, facing Mecca.

The minbar pulpit for sermons is to the right again. In this photo you can see not only the beautiful stained glass, but also a limited amount of the blue tiles.

Unlike yesterday’s Rustem Pasha mosque, it is easy to find the center of the dome for this photo! Beautiful!

Leaving the Blue Mosque we see this beautiful garden full of tulips. We are shocked to learn that Holland gets all of its tulip bulbs from Turkey! If it weren’t for Turkey, Holland wouldn’t have the recognition it holds for its tulips!

We are thwarted from the Hagia Sofia – not open yet! – so we head to the Grand Bazaar! This place is huge and wandering, unlike the Spice Market! The first couple of hunder feet are filled with jewelry stores!

We wander down, no, we’re dragged down a side hall by a shop owner who insists on giving us his business card, but he doesn’t have one on him! We find a section of the Grand Bazaar with ceiling paintings that go back a long time! More of what I expected to find, rather than the pretty, updated halls in the first photo!

There is a special fountain in the middle of the Grand Bazaar! It looks like the kind of fountain that Muslim men use to wash their feet and hands before prayer, but the men here are using it to fill and dump their mop buckets!

After the usual jewelry and rugs we begin to find other things, like purses and belts, linens, blankets and pillows!

Then we find the musical instruments. I love the variety of colors in the baby guitars and ukeleles!

Then there is a shop that seems like it belongs in the Spice Market!

Halls splitting of in a “Y” help to make this place a little more confusing to wander around in! It’s kinda fun, actually!

We finally finish our exploration and head to the Hagia Sofia!

The Hagia Sofia began life as a cathedral, so it was filled with Christian symbolism. This means images for Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Here King Leon VI is prostrating himself at Jesus’ feet while images of the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel look on. Well, when this cathedral became a mosque these images have to go – Muslims do not allow any images of man or beast in a mosque. But recognizing the value of the artwork, they chose to hide the imagery during services (prayer and sermons). So they created a cover that can be raised when the people are called to prayer, and lowered when the mosque is open for tours! You can see the tan cover just above the door, and the strings that pull it into place.

The interior of the Hagia Sofia is architecturally stunning! The columns and arches are beautiful, and the domes leading up to the main dome are all beautiful! The dome itself is high and huge!

Over the front transept is an image of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus on the dome. The muslims created a retractable panel to cover the images. It doesn’t appear to be working well right now – that is, is has not fully retracted. The cathedral was not built to align with anything but the ground on which it stood. So Mecca is a little bit to the right. You can see the mihrab that points to Mecca is angled a little to the right.

There are four archangels on the ceiling. Their faces had been masked over, but one had been revealed during restoration activities. The Muslims elected to not cover it over. But the other three remain hidden.

I attempted to capture a centered image of the dome. I expected to catch a part of myself, but didn’t realize I would have three idiots in my camera space.

So I also snapped this photo off center, but more complete because the light fixture is not in the way. And look – no faces or arms (except the one angel)!

This wraps up two days of three tours in a place we’ve tried twice before to visit! Back at the dock the Norwegian Jade is already gone. We push off, spin around, and leave this lovely location!