Istanbul Day 2

Trip Start Aug 11, 2007
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Trip End Nov 08, 2007


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Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Up bright and early and off to the Topkapi Palace for the gate open at 9am. In fact we were there 15 mins early, just in time for the tour bus rush! It was pretty much bedlam and there was only one guy selling tickets and a whole heap of very angry yelling tour guides pretty unhappy that us non-guided plebs were getting the tickets not their clients (cos it was our window open not theirs). Got in ahead of the main rush which was nice, then spent a few hours wandering around and looking at the fabulous décor you can have when are absolute ruler with phenomenal wealth. Couldn't take photos of the jewels in the treasury (which were pretty fabulous!!), but one of the most impressive parts was the large box of emeralds the size of eggs that were obviously left over after they'd put all the ones they wanted onto ornaments, clothing, egg cups whatever.....

Then wandered off down the hill to the Archaeological Museum, which had huge collections of sarcophagus's, statues, pottery, etc dating back some times up to thousands of years, covering a huge number of different civilisations - Hitite, Mesopotamian, Phyrgian, Lycian, Greek, Roman.... Fabulous decor at Topkapi Palace
Fabulous decor at Topkapi Palace
 . All well displayed and explained. In any other museum, just a portion of the collection would be considered a must-see, here, hardly anyone visits cos there's so much else to do and see. One of the most interesting bits was the display of archaeological finds made as they are putting a new subway system through the city. Chris got tired before Tina and went and sat outside in a lovely shaded garden beautifully arranged with all the ancient statues, columns etc that weren't good enough to make it into the inside displays!

Then our first encounter with the carpet salesmen.... They can't believe we won't buy, we have heaps of fun and lots of apple tea - its great when you are thirsty from sightseeing! Chris likes tormenting them - we always say hello and stop for a chat.

We wandered around some more and found the spice market - bought some figs and got to try frankincense - its like a chewy gum, but tastes pretty bad! (apparently it's a cure for stomach problems). Then up some little narrow streets, which are obviously where Muslim families shop for clothes, then stumbled into the Grand Bazaar. Stumbled out about an hour later without buying anything (we're so strong willed - helps knowing that one day we're going to have to carry our packs on our backs!!) but had a lot of fun bantering with the bazaar shop keepers.

Some more wandering in the approximate right direction for a while and we were back at the hotel, which was just as well as our legs were aching - we'd walked about 10 kms and the place is a lot hillier in real life than it looks on the maps!!! Definitely time for a beer (or 2 - Efes beer is pretty good!) before a shower and off to dinner at a nice little (tiny actually) local restaurant (not easy to find here in tourist central), for mezes and grilled fish.
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