Istanbul (Day 3) ... Jan 30, 2009

We slept in a little bit again (i.e. 8:00 or so), ultimately leaving the hotel just before 9:00 where we found a McDonald's for breakfast on our walk back to what I call the "tourist complex" (the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Topkapi Palace, the Cistern, etc. are all within a block of one another, about a 15 minute walk from our hotel). After having visited the Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace already, we headed for the Blue Mosque, known officially as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the National Mosque of Turkey. A friendly gentleman saw us walking toward it and offered to show us where the entrance was, ensuring us he wasn't a "tour guide", but just a "friendly gentleman". Ultimately his goal was to get us to go visit his carpet shop, which, because it was not raining, we politely declined, preferring to take advantage of any dry spell (which admittedly we enjoyed for the rest of our trip … no more rain).
We had to remove our shoes to enter and carry them around with us in plastic bags. It is beautiful inside. It is called the Blue Mosque because of the blue tiles adorning the interior walls, not because of the lights on the outside that looked like they had a blue cellophane cover. I speculated that these lights shining on the Mosque at night would make it look blue. They didn't.
Completed in 1617 and commissioned by Sultan Ahmed I, it was supposedly the first mosque built that was not financed through spoils of war, but rather through withdrawing from the treasury, since Ahmed I had not had any notable victories in his conquests. The interior is lined with more than 20,000 ceramic tiles (Iznik) in more than 50 different tulip designs. One notable feature is that the Blue Mosque has 6 minarets on the exterior. The Sultan was criticized as "presumptuous" when his six Minaret mosque was revealed, as this was the same number of minarets as the Mosque at the Ka'aba in Mecca. He was petitioned to tear one of the minarets down. Instead of doing this, he paid to have a seventh minaret added to the mosque in Mecca!
We left the Mosque and walked the block to the "Cistern", the "water tank" built by Constantine (and "re-modeled" by Justinian in the 6th century) that provided water to the Topkapi Palace and other Istanbul palaces. We had fun locating the 2 columns that have the head of Medusa carved in the base. I am glad that we have much more modern ways to contain and deliver water today!
We decided to try to visit the Kariye Museum, so we headed down to the bus terminal down by the river to find transportation. Once we arrived at the river we thought we might instead go and visit the Pera Palace, located on the other side of the river (still on the Europe side of Istanbul). We were convinced by a local "sea captain" to instead take a tour up the Bosporus, which was on our list of things to do, so we decided to make that 1.5 hour little tour (and in an enclosed tour boat, so we could be warm!). We passed a number of intricately built structures, mosques, and palaces as we meandered up the river. Whitney also taught Katie the alphabet in American Sign Language, which I was surprised to see she still actually remembers completely!
We docked at a slightly different port than the one we embarked from, so we ran as fast as we could (it was cold!) to eat lunch and go to the Ferry to take us across the river to see the Pera Palace. We got on the wrong ferry, though, and instead arrived in Asia. This was also on our list, to head across to Asia, so we took a good look at the mosque on the Asian side of Istanbul then got on the ferry to go back!
We decided to go back to the hotel and call it a day (after another swim in the pool). On our way back we passed a barber shop, where I decided to do as the locals and get a shave. It was an experience!