One of my favorite experiences we had travelling while living in Dublin was the Holy Land Cruise we took with my parents and sister. The trip was exactly two years ago over Halloween and hubby and my birthdays (which fall back to back days), Honeybun was a bit over 3 and Sugarplum was 15 months. The cruise left from Istanbul and visited Israel, Athens and Ephesus. While I loved the entire experiences, Istanbul was amazing in its own way.
I am fascinated by other cultures and how places and people have changed over time (perhaps I should have been an anthropologist!) and Istanbul has an amazing array of stories to tell. Even though it is now a mostly moderate Muslim community, the vast Christian, Byzantine and Ottoman influences cannot be overlooked.
We spent two full days in the city of Istanbul. The first was the first day after embarking the cruise ship the night before and before setting sail that afternoon. We walked from the cruise ship, across the Galata Köprüsü bridge to the Spice Bazaar. Unfortunately I had failed in my planning ahead and the actual bazaar was closed but we had a fabulous time wandering around the open air markets near the bazaar and had some great traditional snacks and bought a few souvenirs.
Our second day in Istanbul was after our cruise was over. We found a hotel/apartment near all the sights and headed from the ship to drop our baggage before heading out to explore the old, walled city. This was an exhausting day but we saw so much and there is so much more I wish we had had time for!
We started by heading toward the “Blue” (Sultan Ahmed) Mosque. This was the only mosque we visited during our travels and I am so glad to have had the experience with the girls. Just as any worshiper entering the mosque, we were required to remove our shoes which we placed in plastic
bags and carried and us ladies placed the mandatory scarves over our heads which we had brought with us solely for this purpose (the girls were excluded from needing a headscarf, I don’t know what the rules are and at what age young girls are required to wear them). We also had a buggy for Sugarplum that we had to fold up and carry through the mosque (luckily we had our small umbrella stroller with a shoulder strap so it was super easy to carry). The architecture and decoration of the mosque was extravagant, amazing, beautiful…indescribable really.
From there we headed to Hagia Sophia which is a former Greek Orthodox Basilica turned Imperial Mosque turned museum. You could literally see the layers of history where the Islamic decorations put in place during the time it was a mosque have been stripped away to reveal the original Christian mosaics
underneath. While Hagia Sophia is not nearly as extravagant as the Blue Mosque (it almost seems dirty in comparison), visitors have the freedom to explore most areas of the basilica/mosque and there is good information on the history of both the building and the cultures surrounding the change of building purpose. The girls loved being able to explore and Honeybun prided herself in finding all the Jesus’ (which she had become a pro at after our tour of Israel).
We wrapped up the day with a visit to the Topkapi Palace which housed the majority of the Ottoman Sultans. The palace includes many exhibits including a collection of Sultan costumes, a collection of Japanese and Chinese Porcelain, a treasury collection, a portrait collection, the palace library and the Harem. We visited many of these including the portrait gallery and treasury which was extremely crowded with masses of pushing people and, frankly, not very much fun though luckily we had chosen to do shifts through the treasury since we couldn’t take the buggy in and Sugarplum was napping so we didn’t have to worry about losing the girls in the chaos. I am still disappointed we did not visit the Harem, unfortunately there was an extra charge to visit and by the time we arrived there everyone was tired and a bit on the fussy side so I was outvoted and we didn’t see it.
We found Istanbul very easy to navigate by foot though it is a bit hilly. The biggest traveling problem we had was transport to/from the airport and from the ship to hotel, however. While Turkey requires all children be properly restrained in a child safety seat, even in taxis, we found this rule is neither followed nor enforced. We brought our own car seats to use throughout the trip as we had planned driving tours in all the places we visited. To and from the airport we had prearranged transportation which was fine (other than the trip from the airport which was not what we expected and the driver got lost) but getting from the ship to the hotel was a different story. We picked up two taxis at the port to get all of our people and stuff to the hotel and as I went to install the girls’ car seats in one of the taxis I realized that while there were seatbelts, the buckle portion was GLUED down so the seatbelts were not usable. Despite the drivers’ insistence that it was fine and to not worry about the car seats, we switched everything around to be able to properly secure the girls into the other taxi.
Unfortunately the girls don’t remember too much about Istanbul but they do love to dance and sing: “Istanbul was Constantinople. Now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople…Why they changed it, I can’t say…People Just Liked It Better That Way!!!”
