Annalise's Adventures in Wonderland: We Love Istanbul!

We arrived in Istanbul after taking a 14 hour night train from Sophia. One of the biggest problems with night trains is that you always cross the borders at about 1 am. It usually takes about an hour to get stamped out of one country, a 30 min-1 hour train trip to the other border, and another hour to get stamped into the new country. All of this happens between 1 and 4 am. We have become used to waking up to loud knocks on the doors and bright lights being turned on by guards.

Skyline of Istanbul.

Anyway, we arrived on a grey, rainy morning and were blown away by the city (not literally as there was not much wind). There were minaret spires and huge domed mosques in almost every direction we looked. The city was fully of people and busy, and after a walk over a bridge that gave us great views of the city , we were already half in love with the place. It has a great atmosphere, a cosmopolitan feeling, everyone is friendly, the food is to unbelievably good and cheap, and there is so much history everywhere you look, dating back to the the Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans and the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. There is a massive wall that was built to protect the city that was once Constantinople. Some of it is still standing and some of it has been reconstructed so that it is one of the most impressive things you see as you enter the city centre. You can climb to the top if it in some sections and the huge city is spread out below you.

A busy Saturday market.

Istanbul at night.

There are soooo many things I want to tell you about in this city. One of the best things is the Turkish Delight. It is a mouthful of Oh-my-God-deliciousness. Especially the pomegranate and pistachio ones. They also have really good baklava and kebabs, which we have been living on. And I have finally learnt the difference between a shish kebab which is on a stick and donar kebab which is in a roll or bread. I have decided I'm addicted to apple tea which is full of sugar. When we leave Turkey I think I will have sugar withdrawals! But I really don't like pomegranate juice, which Justin thinks is blasphemy as it is only 60 cents to a dollar for a cup.

Mmmmm turkish delight.

We have been doing the tourist thing here and visited several important places. These include the Blue Mosque, were you visit between prayer times and have a strict dress standard to enter. Women have to cover their heads, upper arms and legs, while men have to do the same except their heads. The mosque is one of the biggest mosques in the city and is beautiful with paintings and mosaics everywhere. One of the interesting things about mosques are that there are no pictures of any people in them, unlike in christian churches.

The Blue Mosque.

Inside the Blue Mosque. The lines through the photo are actually the wires holding up the chandeliers.

We also visited the Hagia Sophia, the Topkapi Palace, the Grand Bazaar, the Basilica Cistern and the Spice Market. The Hagia Sophia is a huge Byzantine church, that is a mix of christian and Islamic design. It even has carved graffiti from Norse mercenaries on the marble. The Topkapi Palace is the huge palace complex of the Ottoman rulers and includes the harem and many, many rooms with beautiful paintings done to look like mosaics. The Grand Bazaar and the Spice Markets are huge shopping areas that sell almost everything you could want. We didn't manage to see all of the areas as they were too big. The Basilica Cistern is basically a huge underground water tank. It was built during Justinian's reign and holds up to 80,000 cubic meters of water, which was bought from 19km away. The roof is held up by 336 marble columns and the whole thing was built by slaves, with hundreds of them dying in the process.