Day 2.5 - Historic Istanbul

We also visited Hagia Sophia on our second day. It is a church converted into a mosque. It has been added onto over the years...since it was first built in 60 A.D.

The place has both Christian and Muslim aspects.


There is ongoing restoration work and the interior is partially filled with scaffolding. It was extremely high scaffolding and you could see tiny people moving above working on the ceiling.

The place was massive.

There was a second floor that was also impressive. To get to the second floor, the pathway was a stone lined ramp. This picture is the start of it, but it kept winding up and up and it was weird to not be climbing stairs to a second floor.

Another shot from inside.

One thing that was particularly interesting about Istanbul, was all the cats. Yes, I said cats. Unlike South America where you see dogs everywhere, it is cats in Istanbul. These cats were also considerably friendly. Here is one of my friends.

As if we could not do another thing on day 2, we did. We visited the underground Cistern, which was built in 532 to supply water to the city. Today, it is mainly a tourist attraction where you walk around on raised wood platforms over 2 feet of water.

There are 336 columns supporting the place.

It was an exhausting day, but we were able to see a ton of sites.

Day 2 - Historic Istanbul

Since I have taken over 200 photos in Istanbul, it is hard to squeeze in everything. So Day 2 will have to be a few blogs!

On the second day, we visited the Topkapi Palace. According to the guide books, it is the world's least pretentious palace! It was built by the Mehmet the Conqueror in 1475. As different sultans came to power (over 450 years), buildings were added on. So the place is a huge compound with lots of buildings.

Here we are walking up to the Palace (Ben, Maria, Jess, Ruth, and Sara).

The sweeping landscape before you reach the Palace.

Here is the entrance to the Palace. Looks a little like Disneyland!

There are over 300 rooms in the Palace. We started our tour in the Harem where 300 to 500 women once lived. It was rather sad listening to the audio guide talking about the women as their sole purpose was to produce male sultans and marry high level officials in the sultan's government.

Throughout the Palace there were fireplaces, some more decorated then others. Here is a nice one in the Harem.

There was marble columns everywhere.

Every room had beautiful tile.

There were also sitting rooms throughout the Palace.

There was also a pool with different water features. Here is a wall fountain.

Another sitting room.

Every door and shutter was also impressive.

The Palace also had beautiful jewelry and gifts from all over the world. It was a very interesting 4 hours as we wondered around.

Day 1 - Historic Istanbul

I just got back from a trip with 5 friends to Istanbul. Funny enough, it was my first European trip since I moved to London (which is a little shocking....I should be traveling more). Anyway, it was an exhausting trip and nothing like I imagined. Here I am getting ready for the plane to take off. It was just a short 3 1/2 hour flight from London. However, I had to leave my house at 4 am in the morning to catch the flight!

Here is a shot flying into Istanbul. You can see all the barges as we fly over the Sea of Marmara.

After we landed, we took a taxi ride to the hotel. There seemed to be an election going on and there were flags and posters everywhere for candidates.

After checking in, we didn't have much daylight left. We decided to head to the Blue Mosque. It was built between 1601 and 1616. The crazy thing about the city is that there are mosques every where and you can see them across the city as they are usually much larger then any other buildings.

Here is a shot close up. You can enter any of the mosques for free. You only have to remove your shoes and women have to wear a headscarf.

Here are a few shots from inside. The disappointing part was the hundreds of wires hanging from the roof. The wires support lighting for the enormous space, but they take away from the architecture. And they don't allow flash photography so the pictures are not that sharp.

Here is a close up of one of the hanging lights over the enormous floor.

After we visited the Blue Mosque, it was night time and we found a local restaurant to eat. The one thing that we received at every meal was this over sized pita bread that was delicious to eat. We would get about 4 of them during each meal and by the end of the trip, we all said we needed to go through bread detox!

We ended up going to bed pretty early so we could do a lot the next day.

Tales From Canterbury

Finally the weather has started to break and you can actually walk outside for long periods of time without freezing to death. Yesterday, I took the train about 1 1/2 hours outside London to visit Canterbury. The village has been around since the Iron Age...43 AD if you can believe that.

I spent the day walking around. The village is partially surrounded by a wall that was built in the 1300's. Here is part of the wall.

The wall is integrated into everyday life. Here is a car driving through the wall into the village. Kinda funny to see.

One of the main gates into Canterbury.

There is a small river that runs through Canterbury that you can take boat rides on. Apparently, they use to drown witches in the river back in the day. They would strap the woman to a stool and hold her under water. If she did not drown, then she was a witch and they would burn her alive (lovely). If she did not survive and drowned...then she was not a witch and her name was cleared (great...dead but not a witch).

The biggest thing to do in Canterbury is visit the Cathedral. Here it is towering over the village.

Once you actually get to the Cathedral, you realize it is just massive. This is a picture of just half of it.

Probably the highlight of the whole experience was the music. I just happened to be visiting while a group was practicing for an upcoming concert. The music was amazing and I felt like I was back at St. Olaf. I sat and listened to the music for a while and then walked throughout the Cathedral listening to the music the whole time.

The architecture was amazing and again, the place was huge.

There was stain glass everywhere.

There was also a lovely courtyard off to one side of the Cathedral.

Throughout the courtyard there was lots of graffiti. People had carved their initials into the stone. I have to ask, how many people have seen graffiti from 1603?!!!!!

Overall, it was a very nice day trip outside of London. I am looking forward to hitting some other towns in the following months.