Talkin' Turkey

Welcome to Istanbul! 

Our tour guide was Ozer (we called him Oozy), a very knowledgable man who went to university for 5 years and speaks a few languages.  He is the tour guide for many international diplomats, including Russell Crowe (!?) and worked at Club Med for 4 years.  He fancied himself as a bit of a ladies man and even secretly whispered to Robbo after pulling him away from his Harem for secret men's business that when he was in Club Med that he was the Number 1 man there on the list. 

Apparently women fell at his feet..... maybe they tripped?

The first stop on this tour was to Topkapi, the Sultan's Palace and we were pretty happy about being there.  We were even happier when Oozy whisked us past the growing crowds of bus tour people - 1000's of them!

The palace was beautiful and tiled to within an inch of its life!  

It is now filled with cabinet upon cabinet of jewels and gifts of weaponry adorned with turtle shell and mother of pearl and precious gems.  They were all highly guarded and photos were not allowed.

This is what was referred to as a kiosk, it was where the women or men (they were, and still are, separated all the time) would sit and meet with each other and I guess, just hang out.

For those of you who are unaware, Istanbul is spread out over 2 continents that is only separated by the Bosphorus, the body of water that runs between the Asian and the European sides of the city.  It starts at the Black Sea and head's down to the Marmarus Sea.  

The Palace sits high on a hill that overlooks all the water ways.

There were a few extra annexe type buildings that were added on later on in years like this one below that we all though was modelled on The Queenslander, perhaps?

And in this area they would keep all sorts of animals

After learning a bit about ancient civilisations, I'm still amazed at how they built things and invented things and just made stuff work.... like, for example this little pond was their air conditioning.  It was the coolest place in the palace.  Apparently the little fountains were part of the cooling mechanics and the Sultan would sit on the little platform that juts out and just soak it all up.

This was another of his throne platforms, they were dotted around everywhere, in fact these two throne areas were about 10 metres away from each other.  However, this one on the right had the better view.  If you look past the two muppets in the photo, you can see the whole of Istanbul.

 This was one of the many meeting rooms that were all tiled and specially air conditioned for summer and complete with a massive fire place for winter. 

Oozy was a pretty good tour guide in that he knew a lot of stuff.  However he had a peculiar way of speaking where he would only open his mouth enough for sound to come out, but not to enunciate any actual words.  Sometimes his teeth were so firmly gritted together that it looked like it was painful to get the words out.  This made understanding what he was saying a bit draining as you had to really concentrate.  He would also just start talking, no matter where we were standing at the time, so we missed the beginnings of most stories and if we asked him to repeat it he would pretend not to hear us and just keep talking.  

I once asked him what the gold horseshoe shaped thing on all the mosques was and he cut me off mid sentence and said "they are not gold".  So when I tried to ask again, he ignored me and moved on to the next thing.

We soon realised that we were going to be told what he wanted us to hear and nothing else.

This was apparently a very well known fountain and is on all the brochures of Topkapi, so therefore it was paramount, according to Oozy that we get a photo in front of it.

Next on the list of this mammoth day of sightseeing was all the mosques in Istanbul - all 2000 of them!

This is Aya Sofya, a pretty old mosque.  

It's got 30 million gold tiles throughout the interior and was built in the 6th century!

They certainly built things to last back then!

This was the step into the mosque.... just imagine how many people would have walked over that threshold sine 6 AD!!!!!!

One fabulous thing about marble flooring is that it is cooling on the feet when you've been walking a for 100 hours in the heat.

This is apparently the palm print of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.  The building was built by the Justinians in the Byzantine era and was used by the Eastern Orthodox people, the was later changed to a mosque by The Ottoman Empire.

My guess is that Mary had a very small wrist and some fat fingers or was a cartoon character.

This fabulous old ladder was hidden down the side, I wonder if it is what they used to mosaic the ceiling?  The extendable ladder - such amazing technology that we still use today. 

This was to the side of the mosque.  I'm not sure if it was built there or moved there, but this was a huge bath!  

They liked everything to be communal, as long as the ladies and the gents weren't mixing.... a little bit like today where the men stand around the BBQ and the ladies are in the kitchen!

The is where they kept the wine.  Now that's what I call a flagon o' woobla!

The next step was the Blue Mosque.  It is the mosque that is most photographed and we had to be covered appropriately to go in and have a look.

At the front door we were given scarves and veils and medical scrubs and plastic bags for our shoes.  Shall I just mention that this is just for the ladies...... Robbo was able to swan through in his shorts and t-shirt!

Lu, who had been there before, brought her own scarf - smart lady!

And so that was the Blue Mosque...... and let me tell you we were all jumping for joy to take the hot scarves off, especially when I saw that the ones people had just taken off were being bundled back to the entrance to give to the new people coming in....... ew!