I arrived in Istanbul on Saturday evening, and my client meeting wasn’t until Monday, so I had all day Sunday to explore the city.  I had also allowed two more days for potential followup meetings, and my flight left on Thursday morning.  Did I spend Tuesday and Wednesday in a nuclear pharmacy?  Stay tuned…

But for Sunday, I knew the big tourist sites were going to get crowded, so I needed to get moving early, and pick one site to do first before the crowds arrived.  And there was really only one possible choice.

The Hagia Sophia was built by the emperor Justinian I in the 530s.  Although it is currently used as a mosque, the building predates Islam itself.  It’s coming up on fifteen hundred years old.

And they just let you go in and walk around.

Now to be clear, they don’t let you walk everywhere. Quick history of the building: It was a Catholic church for the first 500 years of it’s existence until the Great Schism separated the Eastern Orthodox faith from Catholicism.

It remained Orthodox from then until the Fourth Crusade showed up to steal the bronze horses and otherwise generally pillage stuff. Back to Catholicism for a bit until the Byzantines managed to retake the city. However, they couldn’t hold on to it, and when the empire was defeated by the Ottomans in 1453, the Hagia Sophia became a mosque.

Among other things, this transformation required putting the mihrab, or prayer alcove, off-center, since Istanbul is close enough to the holy lands that Jerusalem and Mecca have a detectable difference in direction.

The building remained a mosque until 1935, when it became a museum.  It was converted BACK to a mosque in 2018.  This latest transformation is a bit of a bummer from a tourist perspective, since it means we are confined to the second floor balcony.

But the second floor balcony is HUGE, and we still get to walk around this fifteen hundred year old building.

Truly a stunningly memorable experience.

After leaving the mosque, I walked down the street to the museum that was included in my ticket.  That was… less stunning.  The second floor had some nice historical artifacts, like this golden arm.  (Eat your heart out, Frank Sinatra.)

But to get to them, we first had to walk through a goofy-ass multimedia presentation on the third floor.  Every room had a projection and “exciting” music, and we were given headsets with narration in our language of choice.  But the music was so loud, you literally could not hear the narration over it.

It was fascinating seeing Christian artifacts described with the same dispassionate neutrality applied to non-Christian artifacts in western museums.

The Hagia Sophia museum is just across the hippodrome from the actual Blue Mosque, so I got in line to see that.  It is certainly nice, architecturally, but the crowds were starting to detract from the effect.

Moving on, it wasn’t quite time for lunch yet, so I wandered off to see what else I could see.  I found a small cistern that charged way too much for admission, and also had a DIFFERENT goofy-ass light show playing on a loop.  I would have rather just let them turn the lights on so I could SEE the ancient architecture.

By the way, this is NOT the famous “Basilica Cistern.”  Rather, this is the cistern of Theodosius.

Right. Coffee time.

I’m not coming to Istanbul and NOT getting Turkish coffee, and this place seemed pretty nice – it was down the end of a long stone walkthrough.  The container in the middle held Turkish Delight (although NOT served by a pale woman in a sled), and the cup on the right is sherbet, which is NOT an ice cream in this part of the world.

Went back to the square, ticked off some simple pictures for Geocaching, and then I decided it WAS time for lunch.  I found some great reviews of a nice place nearby, but when I got there, it was closed for a private function.  One street over, however, I found a perfectly nice fish restaurant, so I got a fish.

I also got an audience.

This little beggar sat there the ENTIRE duration of my lunch hoping I would trip and feed them. I did not.

Coming back up to the main square again, there were a few possibilities for other major attractions, (such as the Basilica Cistern and the Topkapi palace) but, as expected, they had all gotten super crowded.  Instead, I went to the quite interesting Archaeology museum.

Here’s an exhibit showing the various layers of Troy, with artifacts extracted from each one.

Here’s Artemis, the patron goddess of ARTMS, my employer.

And finally, here’s me taking a selfie in front of a sculpture that looks like it’s taking a selfie.  Remember THAT running joke?  No, of course you don’t.

It was late afternoon by this point, so I started walking back towards the Golden Horn in hopes of visiting the spice bazaar and then going and finding some food.

The spice bazaar is a large enclosed shopping structure.  The building is fascinating and historic, but as far as I can tell, the vendors are effectively a) all identical and b) all crap.

There’s also a little pet and garden area tucked in to one corner of the exterior.  It’s fun seeing pet food sold in exactly the same way as sumac powder.

To finish the day, I crossed the Golden Horn again, and went to an excellent rooftop restaurant called Tershane Karaköy.  What was so excellent about it?  Well, THIS was my view during dinner.

And the food was pretty damn good too.

Phew – that was a long day, wasn’t it?