It finally stopped raining! We got a pretty late start today but headed out on Istiklal to grab a light breakfast of boyoz, a Turkish pastry, coffee and tea. First making a pit stop at the Galata Tower, we crossed the Golden Horn, and began following the tram tracks through the Old Town to the Ayasofya museum.
Doner kebab on Istiklal
Shake Shack. More on this later.
The southwestern tip of the New District
The first structure of the Hagia Sofia, as it's also called, was built in 537 as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral, and also served as the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In its third and final construction, it remained the largest cathedral for one thousand years until the Cathedral of Seville was completed, a serious engineering feat. When the Ottomans took Constantinople, the church was pillaged, and made into a mosque. Plaster applied to the walls in disrepair and to cover the iconography in mosaics actually did a lot to protect them. Sounds a bit familiar, right? We spent a lot of time wandering the ground level and upper gallery admiring the art and mosaics before taking a break at the bar at the Four Seasons down the street with a glass of raki, a sparkly mint soda, glass of Turkish red wine, and some meze.
Exterior of the Ayasofya
It's much taller than it appears here. Unusual to see Islamic and Christian art under one roof.
Comnenus Mosaics
With our blood sugar up, we thought we'd check out the Hippodrome, but never made it, as we were side-tracked by a shop on our way at the Arasta Bazaar called Jennifer's Hamam. After getting the towel talk at the shop, we were whisked away to their showroom with a couple from Salt Lake City...and then left with a bag full of organic Turkish cotton goodies.
Arasta Bazaar under a crescent moon
A whirling dervish performance for tourists
Hafiz Musafa's shop window
It was getting late in the evening, so we started back towards Galatasaray, stopping first to stock up on Turkish Delight at Hafiz Mustafa 1864 - lots of nut-free varieties for me and nutty incarnations for Vincent. The Turks really do love their pistachios. There are pastries and candies stuffed with pistachios and then dusted or rolled in more pistachios. There's a chartreuse crumble on or in almost every sweet! They say when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Well tonight we did as the Turks do here in Istanbul, and had Shake Shack burgers for dinner. No shame here. A single and a double, side of fries, and extra Shack Sauce.
Galata Tower at night
