(Note: Click on small pictures to see a larger version)

Istanbul surprised and delighted us. We were expecting a dirty, dusty third world city whose squalor detracted from the monuments to its past glories. Instead we found a bustling, modern European city friendly and inviting, yet with a taste of the exotic around every corner. We need to visit Turkey again. For tourist information about Istanbul, click here

Minarets on the skyline remind you that you are in a predominantly Islamic country, but Turkey is a secular state and the religion has a status similar to that of Christianity in the United States.

The Turkish unit of currency is the Lira, but inflation has taken a heavy toll. When we were there the exchange rate was about 285,000 Lira to the US Dollar. For just under four dollars, you're a millionaire!! This 100,000 Lira note is worth about 35 cents.

Istanbul is divided into two parts by the Bosphorus, a very busy waterway which joins the Black Sea, in the north with the Sea of Marmara to the south. The Western side is Europe, the Eastern side is Asia. The European side, the only one we had time to visit, is, in turn, split in two by the Golden Horn, an estuary which drains the eastern end of Thrace. South of the Golden Horn is the ancient city with the Topkapi Palace, Haghia Sophia, the great mosques, and many other monuments. North of the Golden Horn is the more modern (but still older than the United States) section of town. This is where our hotel was located.

After checking in to the hotel we walked up the hill (Istanbul, like Rome and San Francisco, is built on many hills) to a palace that had been turned into a museum.

	Marie admired an old fountain,
	we saw this antique saddle
	and admired a set of teacups with the portraits of all of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire.

Wandering the streets of the area around our hotel we saw quite a mixture of new and old.

	There were these old wooden buildings on a side street, but no matter how run down they might be, they still had a satellite dish to pick up TV.
	A colorful produce market,
	and this water-front palace that had been converted into apartments and a hotel.
	And everywhere there were reminders of the former imperial standing of this city.
	Istanbul is ready for tourism. There is a special branch of the police force trained to protect and help visitors.

That evening we joined a group which went over behind the Suleimanyi Mosque

	which was all lit up for the Moslem holy month of Ramadan,
	to a restaurant  associated with the Sufi mystics known as "Whirling Dervishes".
	Fritz was issued a head covering.
	After their ritual (no applause, please, it's not a performance) , we had an excellent meal of Turkish traditional dishes.

The following day we took the all day tour which touched on the highlights of ancient Constantinople.

	The glorious mosaics of the St.-Savior-in-Chora church had been plastered over when the ottomans took the city. They converted the church into a mosque, and could have no images displayed. In the 1930's it was converted to a museum, and the mosaics were uncovered.
	The Topkapi Palace built for the Sultans starting in 1462
	Here, the guide was so used to the long lines, that he had to find places for us to stand for the talks that he normally gave while tourists were waiting in line. In this season, we just walked in everywhere: no waiting!
	The treasury of the Topkapi rivals the crown jewels of England.
	The Divan was the suite of rooms where the Grad Vizier held court and where his staff worked.
	Next on our itinerary was the Blue Mosque, thus named because the interior is decorated with blue ceramic tiles from Izmir. Ordinary Mosques have a single minaret. A Mosque built by order of a member of the royal family may have two minarets. The Blue Mosque was built to show the glory of Ottoman architecture and has six minarets.

The next day, Renaissance offered a cruise of the Bosphorus and a visit to Haghia Sophia (which had been closed the previous day). Since it was a foggy day, we decided to go our own way, and signed up with American Express for their morning tour of Istanbul, which duplicated some things that we had seen the day before, but included Haghia Sophia. Due to the season, it turned out that we were the only ones to sign up for that tour that morning, so we had a minivan, and our own guide and driver. It was wonderful! We got to see the narrow streets of Istanbul where all of the business was being conducted, we changed the itinerary, and we got a very personalized tour!

Being the only customers, we adjusted the tour slightly: we skipped a second visit to the Blue Mosque and added the ancient underground cistern which had been built in early Christian days using chunks of marble and columns from Greek times, but used on their side to show that they were no longer cult objects

	Haghia Sofia was wonderful, but was again too dark and too large for the digital camera, and possibly for any camera. You point the camera in any particular direction, and you loose the magnificence of the whole structure. This is a place that is much more than the sum of its parts. You know that feeling you get looking down the nave of a high Gothic Cathedral, soaring to the heavens before you? In Haghia Sophia, you have that feeling no matter what direction you look!
	When we saw it it was full of scaffolding for renovation, but this picture should give you some idea of its awe-inspiring proportions.
	Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the building of the Mosque named after him, Suleimniye. The guide told us that while the Mosque was under construction, there were rumors that it was costing more than expected. A rival ruler sent an emissary to Suleiman with "a few stones for the new Mosque." His pride stung, Suleiman had the emissary watch while the fortune in precious jewels that he had brought were ground up, added to the mortar, and used to build one of the minarets. When the sun is right, you can still see flashes of color from that balcony.

Our guide let us off near the Grand Bazar and directed us to a small restaurant in a courtyard off an alley. It was packed with locals at lunch time, but they found us a table and served a very nice meal for under a million lira.

	We entered the Grand Bazaar, a grid of stalls selling gold jewelry, turkish carpets, leather goods, ceramics, souvenirs, antiques, and many other things that you never knew you needed.
	With a little effort we found our way out of the Grand Bazar and walked down through the crowded market streets of the old city ...
	to the Spice Market .

From there it was a short distance across the Golden Horn bridge to where our ship was waiting for us.

Click here to download and play a full version of the "Istanbul is Constantinople" song as performed by "They Might be Giants". Warning: 2.4 Megabytes!