Istanbul 2     |   home
Antalya   |   More Ruins   |   Cirali   |   Aphrodisias and more   |   Selcuk and Ephesis   |   Istanbul   |   Istanbul 2
Welcome to the Last Page!
Continuing in Istanbul, here are a few pictures we took at the northern terminus of a boat cruise we took up
the Bosphorus.  This is a fort on the river built by the Ottomans in 1452 to choke off Constantinople from
Black Sea commerce.  It worked as the city fell in 1453.

Both of the above pictures are of the Bosphorus, taken from the fort. Note the small skiff barely visible in the
picture on the right, generally on a line with the stern of the tanker.  Like everything else in Turkey, traffic
control on the Bosphorus looked more like art than science.

This fort is now a park and we climbed around on it for a while, enjoying the views.  Can you imaging a major
park, say the Statue of Liberty in New York, permitting visitors to walk up stairs like these, sans handrail?

On the Bosphorus cruise we met some big cruise ship types (not fair to stereotype, I know) that made us appreciate how much more fun it is to travel independently.

Below is a picture of a street vendor selling sandwiches called doners.  We became big doner fans.  The guy uses that huge knife to carve thin slices of lamb or chicken, which he stuffs into a fresh sliced hunk of bread, adding tomatoes, peppers, pickles or whatever strikes his fancy.  Not bad eats for 350,000 lira.   That's 80 cents!
Susie had fun selecting spices in the Egyptian Spice Market.  
The market is located in a large covered plaza area not far from the Grand Bazaar, down the hill near the Gatata Bridge.  This shows the interior of one shop - of which there are dozens, filled with spices, candies, baked goodies and all sorts of other merchandise.  Not all shops featured food.  There were many jewelry and clothing shops mixed in.







Taken outside of the well-known Yeni Cami mosque, this shot shows several dozen Turkish men lined up waiting to wash before entering to worship.  Note the coats hung up along the front of the mosque.  Below each is a man washing his face, hands and feet, using faucets installed there for that purpose.  There is a line of men waiting to use each faucet.  There were also similar washing stations in the small square facing the mosque.
Inside the mosque the men worship in the main areas of the mosque, facing the altar to the East, toward Mecca, and going through their ritual of bowing repeatedly.  This generally seemed to be done from a kneeling position - they would bow their heads down to touch the carpeted floor.  The women were not permitted in main floor area - they worshipped from the back of the mosque, behind lattice work.  This segregation for worship was no surprise to us.  We had read about it of course, but moreover we had seen that Turkish men usually hang around together, separate from the women.  Throughout Turkey, we were


continuously puzzled and amazed by the presence, during the day, of lots of Turkish men wandering around on the street or loitering on curbs or in local cafes.  They seemed to spend most of their time sitting around together, smoking, playing cards and drinking coffee.  In the meanwhile, the women were not out on the street.  A couple of Turks told us that the women were generally occupied with household duties, raising the kids and in some cases working outside the home, all while the man of the house seemingly does nothing.  Sounds like our house!

One of our fondest memories of Istanbul is the call to prayer.  The muezzins (Imams? I'm not real sure of the right term here) in the major Istanbul mosques must be selected in part on their singing voice.  These guys can really belt out a melodious Turkish prayer call.  Our hotel was just a few blocks from the Blue Mosque which had a first-team muezzin, and a short distance away was another major mosque with similar talent.  Come call to prayer time, these two would alternate their cries.  I came to call them the dueling Imams. It was something to hear, beautiful really.

You can see several loudspeakers on this Istanbul minaret.  Well, you could if the photo was better.  You see, I didn't get a digital camera until four years after this trip!  These photos were all scanned.

That's about it for our first trip overseas. We flew back to Rome from Istanbul to catch our return flight to Newark, Seattle and Anchorage.  We were compelled to spend the night in Rome which permitted one last bottle of vino with some great Italian food.  The only additional adventure we had was in catching the train from Termini in Rome back out to the airport (there are very few hotels near the airport so we had to go back into the city for our overnight), we found out the hard way that the train does not run as frequently as we thought and, like our departure from Venice a couple of weeks earlier, we cut it much closer than we should have.  We ended up racing through the airport, checking a bag at the gate, and boarding the plane with not much time to spare, only to then sit at the gate for an extra half hour.  27 hours later, we were getting reacquainted with Buzz and Lizzie, and crashing into bed!

To close out this "saga", as Jenny calls it, we had a great trip.  Four weeks felt about right.  We didn't feel rushed, anywhere.  Although it sounds like we were in constant motion, we actually had some days that were slower than others, and we took advantage by putting our feet up when we needed to.  As for our favorites, we constantly wrapped up one great day only to get up the next morning and begin another.  Both countries were everything we expected, and more.  We both maintained journals so in the future we can be reminded of where we went, in most cases right down to restaurant names, etc.

Of course, there was so much more (that may be hard to believe given the growth of this web site!) than words or pictures can convey.  We're already thinking about what's next.



Return to Home Page

Send Mail: aklindseys@alaska.net