Turkiye, Portugal, Spain and Dubai Day 3 Istanbul 10 Sept 25

Istanbul formerly known as Byzantium and Constantinople, is a city of 16 million people, today we started exploring some it. The city is spread across the Bosphorus River and the Golden Horn (an estuary), it spans two continents and lies at the cross roads of both the Silk Route and the Spice Route.
It’s this later feature that has formed the city into what it is today. In its history it has been ransacked, pillaged and ruled by some of the most powerful historical Empires.
It was colonised by the Greeks in 667 BCE, and named Byzantium, in 196 BCE the Romans took control and built it into a major hub of their empire. In 330CE Constantine the Great renamed the city Constantinople and made it the capital of the Roman Empire, which over time evolved into the Byzantine Empire. In 1204 CE the western European Crusaders stormed the city and briefly established a Latin Empire. In 1453 led by Mehmed II, the Ottoman’s took over Constantinople, this began the conversion into a majority Muslim city and it became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 and the formation of the Republic of Turkey, the capital was moved to Ankara, Istanbul gained its name in 1930, and has its heart of Turkiye. Sorry for the history lesson, but that may help make sense of our day.
We were picked up by our guide Ozan at 9am and went to the Hippodrome. A structure built by the Romans for chariot races that had a capacity of 100,000 people. There is little left today of the 440m x 140m structure, but the spine remains. It now contains two large Obelisks and the remnants of a brass pole that marked the centre point of all the worlds religions. So many interesting stories.
From there we took a short walk to the famous Blue Mosque, or more properly Sultan Ahmet Camii. It was opened in 1616 to rival the Byzantine era Hagia Sophia a short distance away. It is unusual as it has 6 minarets (most mosques only have 4). It’s an impressive structure with a huge dome, the world’s biggest when it was built, and has a capacity for 10,000 people at prayer time. It gets its “Blue” title from the extensive use of blue hued decorations throughout the complex.
Next we went to The Topkapi Palace Museum. A lavish palace of the Ottoman Empire. We spent time walking around the various sections of the palace admiring the collections of jewellery, furnishings, various art works and the magnificent buildings. We got some great views over the Bosphorus River and the Golden Horn. As part of the Palace there were huge public kitchens, capable of feeding up to 10,000 people a day, a huge undertaking of the Sultan.
After lunch we went to Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), a building with a very different history. It was built as Constantinople’s central cathedral in the 4th century, but its wooden roof burnt down, and it was rebuilt in the 5th century. This incarceration also had a wooden structure and suffered a major fire. It was rebuilt in the form we know it today by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. Over the years it has undergone many renovations and use changes. It has been a Catholic Church, an Orthodox Church and an Islamic mosque, as it is today. In its interior you can see clear evidence of all its incarnations. We were told that it will soon close to allow major renovations to be undertaken that may take 10 years to complete.
We then went underground to visit the Basilica Cistern, the largest of Istanbul’s under ground water storage reservoirs. Built by the Byzantine Empire to supply the city with water during the very dry summer months. It is one of about 260 cisterns in the city. It covers an area of about10,000 sq m, capable of holding 80,000 cubic meters of water. Today it is a tourist attraction and has a few art installations scattered around it.
And then we walked to the Grand Bazaar, the worlds largest, and oldest, under cover markets, with over 4,000 shops. It was nothing like I expected, it’s not a massive array of stalls in a labyrinth of lanes, but instead it is a very orderly array of formal shops under a vast connection of old buildings. The floors are tiled, some with marble, and it is all very organised and clean, well except for the confronting effects of people smoking inside. We (I) bought a few mementos and we left after walking around looking at various shops.
It was late when we left, so rather than get a taxi into the peak hour traffic chaos, we chose public transport to get back to our hotel. We got a tram then an underground funicular and we were back at our hotel at around 6pm. A huge 9 hour day, including about 18,500 steps (14+km)
A great day, but we are a bit tired!