The weather was kind to us throughout our stay, and needless to say, I took loads of photos - there was a lot to see! In this blog I give a flavour of where we went, what we saw, and what we did with links to more photos and appropriate narrative.
This was our home for the week in the Beşiktaş area of the city. We were about a 30 minute walk from the Bosphorus. This was our first visit to this splendid city - there was so much to see and so much history to soak up. We did a lot but there was still a lot of places we did not visit -
The Bosphorus is one of the world’s busiest waterways, part of the only shipping lane from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. It’s 20 miles long and varies in width from about 2 miles to some 2,200 feet. It connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, dividing Europe from Asia.
During our stay we visited the old city - Sultanahmet and Grand Bazaar districts - which is essentially what was Constantinople; we ferried across to Kadiköy on the Asian side of the city as well as a slightly longer ferry to the Princes' Islands. We also sampled the delights of our local area of Beşiktaş and neighbouring Ortaköy
This is the Grand Bazaar with an estimated 4400 shops lined along covered walkways. It is said to be the world's oldest shopping mall
It was founded in 1461 by Sultan Mehmet II and was designed as the trading heart of the Ottoman Empire
The
shops are organized around their wares, e.g. the silver jewellers are clustered
together, the carpet shops are clustered elsewhere and the shoe shops are
bunched together somewhere else
Reflected photo of the Beyazit Tower, which was erected in 1828 and was once a watch tower
The famous Blue Mosque - this is probably the single most visited sight in Istanbul. It was completed in 1616 after seven years’ work. It takes its “Blue Mosque” name from the carapace of predominantly blue Iznik tiles which adorn its interior
We strolled around Sultanahmet Square
Column
of Constantine - erected by Emperor Constantine to commemorate the inauguration of his new city in 330. It originally had a massive statue of the emperor dressed as Apollo. However it was toppled by a storm in 1106
We also took the opportunity to visit the famous railway station at Sirkeci. Once the terminus of the famous Orient Express from Paris. Sadly no international trains run from here any more - in fact since 2013 there has been a replacement bus service for those wishing to travel to Bulgaria
... and the old booking hall is now a Museum
For more photos of our time in Sultanahmet with some narrative about the area see link Sultanahmet
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