Travelogue - Highlights: Part 2

On either side of going to Gallipoli and Troy, my friend and I saw a few more things in Istanbul. Here are the highlights:


Topkapi Palace

Topkapi Palace was the official residence of the Ottoman sultans from 1465-1856. It was rather impressive. Unfortunately I can't give you much in the way of photos, because a lot of the best things to see were the collections of weapons, jewellery, and so on. Here are a couple of some of the outside, though:

The Cistern

The Basilica Cistern is the largest of hundreds lying underneath Istanbul. I wasn't really expecting very much, but it was one of those times when you're unexpectedly wowed. The lighting they'd used helped a lot, but I think it would've looked pretty impressive even without it.

This is referred to as the Peacock-eyed column, for reasons which should be obvious!

The cool column prize easily went to the two that had Medusa head blocks at the bottom of them. No-one knows exactly where the blocks came from, apparently, but they're thought to have belonged to a late Roman period building.

The several squillion fish they had down there also added to the atmosphere!

Istanbul University

I've mentioned the university already, and how beautiful the grounds were, but I didn't manage to get any photos when I first saw it. This time 'round however, I managed a quick, slightly blurry shot through the main gate:

Hagia Sophia

The Hagia Sophia is an old mosque now-turned museum. As much as we'd seen just about enough mosques to last a life time, we still wanted to go to this one, as it was meant to be impressive inside. It didn't disappoint. The only disappointing thing was having both my camera batteries go flat on me while I was inside: which was very strange at the time, given was that I was sure I'd charged both of them to near full! (It turned out later that there was a connection problem: there you go.)

Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul was very big, and had just about any sort of souvenir or item you could probably think of. Of particular interest to me, however, were the glass Turkish lamps they had. I'd seen one I really loved at a restaurant in Goreme, and ended up deciding that it might be worth trying to get one home safely, after all. After going through a lot of shops, I actually managed to find one that was very close, which was pretty lucky. The post office, unsurprisingly, didn't want to know about it, and in the end I managed to carry it safely through the last 3 weeks of travelling, without any additional damage. Additional, because the person who wrapped it in bubble wrap at the store decided to leave the heavy metal bob at the end of its chain inside of it. I wasn't able to do anything about it for a day or so, but fortunately it's just crazed a bit, which isn't too obvious. Touch wood, it won't get any worse if I keep handling it carefully!