Lovely day in Istanbul!

Hello!

 

We both actually had fairly good nights of sleep, although once again, I had some awful leg and foot cramps, thanks to dehydration … something that seems to happen to me when we have long flights … I don’t get enough water in my system.  

 

Up around 6 this morning, and to breakfast about 7 am.  And Wow!  Very yummy breakfast!  Turkish breakfasts are generally really excellent, and this one is no exception!  Lots and lots of wonderful choices – everything from fresh fruits and salads to hot dishes – scrambled eggs, delicious fried potatoes, an amazing spinach casserole, pancakes, waffles,Turkish cheese rolls, breads and pastries … an entire array of olives (which R LOVES) as well as humus and marinated mushrooms.  The orange juice was freshly squeezed, and the hot chocolate was great.  We were both very happy!

 

R's breakfast

My breakfast

Trams going in opposite directions 

After we had eaten our fill, we headed outside and almost directly in front of our hotel was a host of ATM’s.  (Here in Turkiye, while individual banks abound, which include individual ATM’s, it seems that the banks just string their ATM’s all together for convenience sake … it’s amazing, and so helpful!). Interesting, though, is that in many countries, we are able to take out up to our daily limit, which is $500, here we were only able to get $250 at one time.  When the money came out, though, I think I may have figured out why!  With the rising inflation rate in Turkiye being something like 225%, I think I probably got almost an inch worth of bills – and it’s $250!  It came out in 200 TL (Turkish Lira) notes – and 200 TL = something like $5.84!  Note to the file:  Spend the TL we take out; don’t take it home, as it certainly won’t be appreciating in value!

 

Back inside to freshen up and head out to do a bit of sightseeing!  We inquired of Memet, at the Front Desk, as to riding the Tram, and he was incredibly helpful!  First of all, he pulled out an InstanbulCarte – a transit card – for us to borrow, which was great!  (Otherwise, we would have had to buy our own, but for only one day’s traveling, it’s really not worth it!). But the Tram line is directly in front of the hotel, and as I wanted to go a bit further down into Sultanamet to see the Milion Stone, and didn’t want to walk the mile or so to get there (I know; getting old/lazy/whatever!) riding the tram was the way to go! 

Row of ATM's!

 

Memet even asked a colleague of his to show us where to “load up” the card, which was very thoughtful.  So … loaded up the card with 200 TL and hopped aboard the T1 and we were on our way!  Truly, very thoughtful people here in Istanbul!  I guess realizing that we were “older” travelers (I keep blaming R for that, and certainly not me!) people seemed to be happy to give us seats, even in a crowded tram car, which was lovely! Somehow we don’t necessarily see that happening in NY or LA, but I could be wrong! 

 

Only three stops to Sultanahmet, and off the tram.  It took us a couple of minutes to orient ourselves and with the help of our phone and Apple Maps, we were led directly to the Milion Stone!  It’s really not much to see, but for me especially, being the Constantinople fan that I am, it was very significant!  I’m appending a few words from a book here:

 

It is well known that all roads should lead to Rome, but when the capital of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople in the 4th century, this city also became the benchmark for measuring distances within the empire. While in Rome the role of the zero milestone was played by the Milliarium Aureum, or the Golden Milestone, in Constantinople it was assigned to the Milion. It was a monument from which all road distances to the cities of the Empire were measured. Nowadays, only very modest remains of this structure can be seen in Istanbul near the entrance to the famous Basilica Cistern.

 

When Emperor Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Empire to the city of Byzantium, which he renamed as Nova Roma, he introduced many solutions known from Rome. One of them was the zero milestone, which was now to mark the centre of the empire and serve as a reference point for measuring distances. This building, known as the Milion, was erected in the heart of the city, in its first region, right at the beginning of the city's most important thoroughfare called the Mese. In the immediate vicinity there was also Augustaion, the most important square of the city, which is now represented by Aya Sofya Meydanı -- Hagia Sophia Square.

 

Milion Stone

Hard to make out, as it's in front of other stone building

Hagia Sofia

Milion stone in front; tram 1 passing by!

Like I said, there isn’t much remaining, but I am glad that we saw it – once, the “center” of the world!  From there, we walked a bit, up past the Ayasofya Mosque (Hagia Sophia) which started life as a huge Christian basilica, past Topkapi Palace with all of it’s treasures and museums (including an excellent archaeological museum, which we have visited several times) and to Gulhane park.  At this point, we decided to get back on T1 and take it back in the opposite direction, and take a look at the great Walls of Istanbul, through which the T1 goes!

 

More Hagia Sofia

City Walls

Still huge after all these years!

The walls were initially built in the 5^th century A.D. by Constantine the Great, to protect the city on all sides, from attacks by land as well as by the sea.  The walls are so formidable that they were almost impregnable for any medieval besieger, and saved the city and the Byzantine Empire with it, during sieges by the Avar-Sassanians, Arabs, Rus’ and Bulgars, among others.  Even today, the walls are incredibly impressive, including 61 gates and 244 towers still standing!

 

Got to the stop nearest to the wall but decided that it was a bit too chilly to walk it, so we took a couple of photos of the 24-km long walls and decided to head back to the hotel for a lie-down.  (It’s been a long couple of days and at least for me, not much sleep!)

 

I’m now up from a very nice nap, and R is down and snoring away nicely, so I think this is definitely time well spent!  We do have a few more weeks in Turkiye, after all!  Planning on heading back to the T1 in a bit and down to the Hippodrome to take a look at a few of the monuments there – the Serpent Column and several Obelisks. (How those obelisks tended to travel…) Then thinking we’ll have an early dinner down in that area, and head back in for the night!  Excellent restaurant here in the hotel, but the menu wasn’t huge, and Rthought a little more variety much be nice!  

 

So, more later!

m

xxx

 

So now it’s later!!  Whenever that is!  Actually, it’s 7:09 pm in Istanbul, and we’re back from an amazing walk and dinner!  Turns out, we napped a bit longer than I thought we would, but I guess we really needed it!  Slept at least a couple of hours and were up and ready to leave the hotel a little after 4 pm.  Fortunately, unlike London, it was still really sunny and bright outside, and although it got up to about 62 degrees here today, I was still very glad to have my warm coat on!

 

Outside and to the Tram for a return to Sultanahmet station, 3 stops away.  This time, we headed in a slightly different direction for the Hippodrome and its monuments.  The hippodrome, it turns out, was once the “social” center of Istanbul – or Constantinople.  And, like Rome before it, was where the chariot races were held to the pleasure of the cheering hordes of fans.  In this case, though, it was decorated with two obelisks – one taken from Egypt, and another “home-built” as it were, as well as Serpent column.  This ancient bronze column was part of an ancient Greek sacrificial tripod, originally in Delphi, Greece, and relocated to Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 324.  It was built originally to commemorate the Greeks who fought and defeated the Persian Empire at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC.  The serpent heads of the column were somehow detached at the end of the 17^th century, and what remains is just a small part of the original column.  

Today, the Hippodrome is part of what is now known as Sultanahmet Square … where, it turns out, a large police presence was gathering!  Was this political?  Or a problem?  Or?  Turns out … well, possibly … it’s where all the buses from downtown Istanbul going to the Galatasaray (Turkish team)/Tottenham Hot Spurs (England) football/soccer game were loading up with fans!  Who knew?!  After sitting next to two Spurs fans on the plane yesterday, I had looked up where the Galatasary stadium is, and found that it was about 6 km away from where we were, and wondered about everyone getting there … well, now we know!  The interesting thing, though, is that the buses didn’t seem at all segregated – there were Turkish and English fans all on the same buses (could never do that with fans from opposing teams in Italy) … and there must have been at least 30 buses loading up, probably with 45-50 people per bus.  Just truly hoping everything passes off well…

 

So, for we tourists … there were the two obelisks, and, in between, the serpent column!  We walked around the square, which was beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine, and then decided to find a place for dinner.  As we were in an area that had lots of restaurants, I used TripAdvisor to find the Deraliye Terrace, which was just a few minutes down the street.  We didn’t have a reservation, but as we like to eat earlier than most people, I was hoping that wouldn’t be a problem.

 

Both obelisks on Sultanahmet Square

Base of Obelisk of Theodosius

Theodosius Obelisk

Serpent Column from Delphi

Column of Constantine

In Sultanahmet Square

Great shop on the street!  Love the lamps!

First of all, we had to run the gauntlet of really tourist-y restaurants at street level.  I’m sure they were fine, but we really wanted an enjoyable meal – preferably with a nice view!  And boy, did we find it!!  Tripadvisor indicates that Deraliye Terrace is #23 of 12,187 restaurants in Istanbul (there are a lot of food choices here, believe me!). We were directed into a building, and to the elevator … took 5 floors up, exited and then walked up one floor to the rooftop terrace!  There, we were greeted by the maître d and seated at a lovely window-side table for four; just perfect!  As we were so early, the place wasn’t at all crowded, which was nice.  The view extended out over both the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn, with ships in the harbor, and the ferry boats commuting back and forth between the European and Asian continents.  An amazing place to be!

 

Sea of Marmara and Prince's Islands

Looking over the Golden Horn

Our two eggplant starters!

My grilled chicken, potatoes and spinach

R's "wet" meatballs

Muslin prayer strung between two minarets

Hagia Sofia at night!

Excellent menu with lots of choices!  To start, we had baba ghanoush as well as mutabal (both various ways to serve cooked eggplant; the mutabal was my favorite!) with freshly made pita bread.  Then, for mains, R had the “wet” meatballs – which neither of us understood, but they were beef meatballs served on bread with a tomato sauce and yogurt.  I had their grilled chicken breast (turned out to be two huge breasts, way more than I could eat!) with a wonderful grilled spinach casserole and boiled potato.  Very yummy!  Had glasses of dry white Turkish wine and naturally, some excellent Turkish sparking water as well.  All in all, view included, I think the bill was something like $96; hard to believe!  

 

As night fell, and the monuments were lit up, the view got even better!  We were very close to both the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque and could see farther than the Galata Bridge and Tower!  Spectacular!

 

Hard to leave the beautiful view, but wanted to get back as I, for one, would like an early night tonight (hopefully!).  So, back on the T1 (after re-charging up the IstanbulCarte) and now safely in the hotel.

 

Tomorrow is a moving day.  Packing up, back to Sabiha Gokcen airport to pick up the rental car, and then on to Ankara!  

 

So, good night to all!

Much love,

m

xxx