Thankfully I have an extra couple days afterwards on my own to discover more of Istanbul, as it is like Rome, Florence, and Barcelona...just overwhelming with their history and culture.
My travel blogs for Turkey may get a bit condensed as I am having less time to blog as our days are so full and plenty of road travel. By the time we get to the next hotel and checked in, have our group dinner, I can barely stay awake. Tonight I am going to jam two days and travel into one so this blog could be a bit of a wordy read again...a year and more from now, I should be happy I have more than just pics to jog my memory.
As we are now in beautiful Cappadocia for 3 nights, I can get caught up a bit and recall the day trips while in Istanbul and Ankara, before they all blur together.
I have pretty much had an overflow of the old historic churches and mosques...they are all super beautiful and the architecture is incredible and I have over these past two weeks within Italy, including Rome, and now Turkey I certainly have seen some of the most amazing in the whole world.
I have also been served and abundence of oppulent palaces, from ancient ruined palaces in Rome and Italy, to very modern and occupied palaces such as Monaco. I kinda enjoy the palace stuff cause its where the rich and famous lived and you get a feel for their lifestyle and can use your imagination as to what it might have been like? The ancient churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues dont do that for me at all and religiosity is a personal conviction while Protesant Christianity is not well represented in these ancient and magnificeint buildings at all!
From our hotel we can easily walk the very narrow bustling cobblestone streets to the Suleymaniye Mosque built by the famous architect Sinan in 1550, and was constructed by order from Suleman the Magnificient.
Of course I know nothing of this mosque and it looks pretty amazing from the outside gates, we were told it took 7 years or 2.7 million working days and over 5500 workers to complete this mosque. Thats all we have time for as the que is super long and I suppose they haven't learned from Rome with their helpful 'skip the line tickets'?
Our guide is a non practicing Muslim from Istanbul, and explains the interesting details and history of the Ottoman's and the Sultan's....he also shares how he has the same givien name as Suleyman the Magnificent, so he is humbly very grateful for that...Hmmm?
I may visit The Suleymanie Mosque with the audio tour in a couple weeks? The Ottoman architecture is unique to what I have seen and it is intersting to understand this era in 16th century Constantinople history, with the Ottomans and Sultans, and the earlier Byzantinians...the ancient old has become new?
As we walked through the sprawling and beautiful Sultan Ahmet Square, and formerly know as the Hippodrome, we also learned about the oldest monument in Istanbul which is over 3500 years old and was given by Egypts Pharoh in 15th century BC...its called the Obelisk of Theodosius, and its in great condition...always very cool to see something that ancient up close!
This huge square is full of treasures, we also learned of the Serpentine Column, Column of Constantine, Kaiser Wilhelm Fountain, Snake Pillar, Topcapi Palace, and you can easily spend a week in this heart of ancient Istanbul, however we are heading away around mid afternoon for the 5 hour journey south to Ankara.
Next is The Blue Mosque or Sultan Ahmet Mosque, it contains 20K beautiful Iznek tiles in the dome providing a blue tinge and it also contians 6 of the prominant Minarets, rather than the more common 4 Minarets that are often used on many other Muslim Mosques.
These Minarets are used to broadcas the call to prayer which is done 5 times per day and it is a powerful and rather haunting voice that you can hear from everywhere...an effective wake up call in the morning for sure!
Most all travel pics of Istanbul portray the easily recognizeable Blue Mosque, so its kinda neat to see it in real life and go inside...and they even allow pics, which is very rare! The dress protocol is strict, as this mosque is still used regularly for prayer by the Muslims. i don't know how they do it with the throngs of tourists all day long watching and taking pics?
Nice to see the ladies wering their head shawl like coverings and a wrap around dress garment for men and womne that you can borrow at the entrance, if you are wearing shorts or showing too much skin and not being modest. We all have to remove our shoes and plastic carrying bags are provided while inside.
The Muslim men who are going to pray have to attend one of many outside cleansing areas to wash theri feet, face, hands and head before entering, It is quite the que but it moves steadily and once inside it is very huge and the tourists are restricted to a small area and the completely coveredd Muslim women have their own chambers in the back close to us, as they cannot pray with the Muslim men of course.
The beauty of the building inside is as expected very unique and amazing...unlike the basilicas there are no paintings or pictures of any humans or animals, as that is forbiden so it is tiles and other art that is painstkinkly used. The acoustics are quite amazing and its kinda dark inside for a simple camera, so my inside pics of the dome and area are not great and can't do justice to the beauty...glad I was able to view the Blue Mosque.
Lastly in historic Istanbul, we take a quick walking tour of the underground Roman Basilica Cistern, which was built in the 6th century for Roman Emperor Justinianus. It's quite the glamorous and huge cistern with over 300 Corinthian style marble columns and was fed by various aquaducts, even the walls are fire proof brick with water resistant mortar...another reminder of how advanced the engineering and civilization was during the power of the Roman Empire.
Back on board our cozy bus and the Istanbul traffic is insane during commuter hours so we hopefully escape soon enough to avoid the worst. This is indeed one huge city and its very interesting to again see the variety of modern industry to varied housing frm the rich to much poverty, commercail and retail business and shopping centres.
There are rolling green hills and mountains to rugged desert like landscape and periodic sheep dotting the countryside and many times the countrside resembles Western Cda.
We arrive into lovely Ankara in the evening, the capital city of Turkey and home to over 6 million people. After checking into the clean and rather impressive Akyuz Hotel, we join for a great eveing group meal and afterwards check out the local neighborhood before retiring and good rest as a busy Tuesday is in store for us.
In Ankara as the country capital and government they proudly recognize as does most all of Turkey the 'Father of the Turks', who was largely responsible for establishing the now Republic of Turkey in 1923, and away from the Ottoman Empire and old rule.
The huge mosoleum in a prominent Ankara location is a tribute along with the patriotism that is shown everywhere with the Turkish Republic flag flying proudly...it is strange to see enormous red flags draping outside of highrise office and commercial buildings all over in Istanbul and also in Ankara.
Mustafa Kernal was a well recognized military commander and became the first president of the new Turkey Republic after he with others abolished 623 years of Ottoman Rule. The Turkish parliament presented Mustafa with a name 'Ataturk' which means 'Father of the Turks'. I noticed the Turks still love this guy and that includes our young tour guide who feels the musoleum and monument isnt near enough to recognize what Ataturk did for Turkey!
Our first morning and day in Ankara is sunny and beautiful as it has been consistently for me...we have another big turkish breakfast presented in our hotel and which I am still craving for fruit but its not as important as bread, cheese, and meat it seems?
We board the bus to the nearby and modern Anatolian Civilization Museum of Ankara, which is around 25 years old and recognized in 1977 as the best museum in all of European Museums...now thats a tough group of company!
The current buildings as we viewed them finally completed afer extensive renovation and reconstruction in only 1968 for full public viewing. The amazing Anatolian artifacts that date back to the Palaeolithic Age of 8000-BC are crude but surreal to view!
Apparently it was 'Ataturk' that wated to establish an 'Eti Museum' in the Turkey capital and after some time, arrangements were made to transfer the incredible Antalonian and Hittite Artifacts to this museum.
I was reluctant to visit another museum, having seen so many recently, but this one was by far the most interesting to me and I was upset that our itinerary wouldn't allow us more time than the 3 hours we were given, as this place for history of ancient humanity was incredible, and I was quite overwhelmed with what we saw and learned.
There were many other groups being guided and myself and Ray were lingering and reading a lot while our group was way ahead with our guide trying to breeze thru it all. There was an archiological professor from New York with a tour group from the the same, and this Doctor was fantastic. It was amazing how he explained in detail and with such understanding and passion each key showcase...wow what a difference you get with a specialty tour like that one!
There was such an abundence of items in pristine condidtion from the Copper Age that began in 5000-BC to the Iron Age that dates to 3000-BC and then the exponential growth in knowledge that existed thru the Hitites from 1700 to 1200-BC...and on and on. It was simply overwhelming to get my brain around these ancient civilizations and their items and lifestyle with the solid proof that they existed and how, and to hear the incredible archeological evidence to back it up, was more than cool.
After the Antolian Museum, its a few more sites in Ankara, which now paled to what we just experienced, and a lunch as we head on the bus for some more road time.
Now a 5 to 6 hour journey further south, with some cool stops along the way, as we reach the very unique region of Cappadocia in Goreme.
Here we still are for one more day, and I have almost got my detailed travel blog and encyclopedia, (lol), up to date, except for today and our arrival here in Cappadocia.
It's great to stay in the same hotel for 3 nights in a row, and explore the area with biking and plenty of rugged walking to visit the outdoor sites and valleys and incredible Flintstone architecture...more to follow soon with funny stories, local food, and great pics of Cappadocia.
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