Page 10 of 11
Istanbul, Turkey
So take me back to Constantinople, no you can't go back to Constantinople
The Star Alliance Round the World business class ticket allows six stops. For my trip, I chose Seattle, Shanghai, Melbourne, Dubai, Jerusalem and Athens. I bought a separate (economy) ticket from Shanghai to Beijing and my time in Singapore only counted as a stopover. What Star Alliance also allows is one destination to be "open jaw," meaning that you can fly into one city but out of another in the same region without burning up an extra stop. I chose Athens to be my open jaw stop, and then (purely as an extra) booked a separate flight on Turkish Airlines (a Star Alliance member) with a 24 hour stopover in Istanbul, following the theory that while 24 hours in Istanbul probably isn't enough time, it still beats no hours at all in Istanbul.
With not all that much time in the city, I decided to concentrate on the big three sights in Sultanahmet, the historic heart of the old city of Constantinople. This first picture is from my first stop, the magnificent Basilica Cistern, the Sunken Palace which stretches endlessly under the ancient streets. It was built as an underground reservoir and an amazingly nice one at that, with 1,500 year old vaults and columns marching off in all directions.
Istanbul is a thriving city on the edge between Europe and Asia, although the historic area of Sultanahmet where I stayed was only crawling with tourists, pickpockets (if you believe the guidebooks) and hard to shake locals trying desperately to sell me a carpet. Seriously, do I really look like I'm looking to buy a carpet?
The historic core of old Constantinople is worth braving all of those tourists, pickpockets and carpet merchants just to see sights like this. Towering over Sultanahmet on the site of the old Roman Emperor's Palace is the Blue Mosque, which is free to visit as long as you show up when it's open.
In terms of timing, I had bad luck with pretty much all of the Muslim sights that I visited. But it could have been worse. Just like my visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, I managed to somehow show up at the Blue Mosque moments before it was closing. I had just enough time to wait in line, take off my shoes and get rushed inside before they started the long process of throwing everyone out. Luckily for me the place was packed, so I ended up having a decent amount of time inside to snap some pictures and gawk at the dome before the considerable crowd was finally cleared.
Here are some of those pictures I was able to snap inside the Blue Mosque, where there was something to see in every direction and (as I waited to be ushered out) just enough time to actually see and appreciate it this time.
Somehow the Hagia Sofia is still standing and the world is a better place for it. The Church of the Divine Wisdom was built in the 500s under Emperor Justinian back when Constantinople was the seat of the Roman Empire. It has survived just about everything since then, with layer upon layer of history burdening the building, day after day, year after year, century after century.
From the second gallery level of the Hagia Sofia, this is a view back towards the central dome and the center of the church... or mosque... or museum. Having survived 1,500 years of emperors, sultans, crusaders, sieges, wars and earthquakes, the columns and walls and stairs and dome still stand in (just about) the same place that all of those countless slaves originally put them in.
It’s hard to walk around Hagia Sofia and not take pictures of every column and every wall and every stair and that dome in such an ancient, amazing, imperfect place.
