The hospitality of the Greek people was matched by the hospitality of the Turks. Just pulling into Istanbul was pretty great. It is an impressive city and the prayer towers(sorry I don’t remember the word) dominated the skyline as did a few mosques. The two most prominent being the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. Our boat pulled into the Asian side of the city. Once off the boat (we arrived 4pm) we headed over to the grand palace of the Ottoman Emperors. A massive complex that was pretty self-sufficient in its day. There were some impressive displays in some of the buildings or chambers of some of the Emperors’ personal items and even presentations and gifts that the heads of other states sent to various Emperors.

We went and ate dinner then headed out at knight. One of friends was hungry and so he wanted to have a snack. We pulled up to a local stand and ate. It was kebab (lamb) on a hoagie roll and it was seasoned really nice. It had a good bite. Earlier that afternoon we had heard one of the calls to prayer. Every tower around us, in turn, began the call to prayer. They were almost choreographed in their precise intervals but they all created a massive resonance and chorus of voices. It was a very beautiful sound and spiritual experience.

The next day we woke up and headed into the city via the local mass transit (which was very efficient and quite good). We had a big itinerary that day and so we visited the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia, the Cistern and the Grand Bazaar.

The Blue Mosque is a working mosque so we needed to pay attention to some very basic rules. No shoes, no flashes from cameras (although no pictures were the actual rules) etc. Once inside it was an impressive site of basilicas and columns. Dome after dome held the impressive structure up.

Next we went to the Hagia Sofia. Yet another impressive site. The Hagia Sofia was the central basilica for the Byzantines when the city was called Constantinople. When the Ottomans conquered the city they turned it into a mosque. Then they built the Blue Mosque. The Ottomans, though not perfect, followed the tenets of Islam being very tolerant of their Christian and Jewish subjects. They uncovered some of the old mosaics that had been covered, as no images of animal or human may be displayed in their houses of worship, and turned it back into a place where its many Christian subjects could still visit (and foreign visitors). You could feel how holy the site was and the mosaics that had been uncovered were beautiful. We were allowed to take photos in the church and we got some great ones of the mosaics.

Next we saw the Cistern. It is an underground spring, fairly large in scale. Their were walkways in between the massive columns that kept the “cave” ceiling up. The cistern was the main source of water (storage) for the city. Photos don’t do the scale of the place justice.

Once finished with our site seeing it was off to lunch where we had a great lamb kebab meal just off the bazaar. The people are so friendly. Then it was off to the market. We all imagined the market and its vendors to be very aggressive. There was an instance or two but for the most part the whole experience was benign. It was still fun and it had to be the largest market I have ever seen. It went on for ever. It was mostly enclosed and there were nicer sections than others.

After the Grand Bazaar it was back to the ship. We had so much fun and really loved the Turkish people in Istanbul. A great experience. We were glad we had an overnight there (the ship).