After saying goodbye to Marina in Craiova, we headed to Istanbul. We had a long drive to the Bucharest airport, and then a long wait at the airport, and when we made it to Istanbul, we had a long bus ride into the center to our hotel. The Istanbul marathon had been earlier that day, the same day as the New York City Marathon, and the streets had just reopened.
We had decided to go for a comfortable hotel, as this was our last stop. When we arrived at the Orientbank Hotel, there was no check-in desk. Instead, they sit you down on couches, offer drinks, and then go through the check in process.
The hotel building had been Deutschebank for many years, and was then vacant. As we were shown during check-in, it served as the building from which Daniel Cragi’s James Bond emerges at the beginning of this scene in Skyfall. The staff at the hotel was wonderful, and gave many helpful recommendations.
For dinner, we headed to a rooftop restaurant for our first of many kebabs.
On Monday, we started out big: Topkapi Palace. Topaki, encompassing many buildings, served as the royal residence and administrative center of the sultans from the 15th through 19th century.
Our first stop was the amazingly beautiful Harem complex
The Harem had spaces for eunuchs, wives, concubines, children, the Queen Mother, the Sultan, servants, and other palace folks. Many of the spaces were built to ensure privacy. The Sultan and Queen Mother had private bathrooms with sophisticated plumbing.
The details are astounding. Every inch of some of the rooms are covered in tile. We may want to tile everything now. Domes created a soaring, light feeling.
Still in the Harem! There were plenty of tourists, including lots of tour groups, but we were able to take our time exploring the rooms. A favorite was the Fruit Room
After the Harem, we wandered to the Sacred Relics building, which required modest dress out of respect to the items inside, including many attributed to the Prophet Mohammed. And also the 100% true, authentic Staff of Moses used to part the Red Sea.
The grounds had beautiful views of the Bosphorus. We stopped into the Treasury Room full of gems and royal objects. We didn’t notice any additional security, noting the recent Louvre reobbery, not to mention the eponymous classic heist movie, Topkapi.
The palace kept going and going and going. We were flagging.
Our final stop in the palace was the kitchen complex, with numerous chimneys. There were no kitchen fixtures, the rooms just held examples of dishes and cookware. One room was devoted to the history of coffee culture.
Stepping out of Topkapi, we immediately faced Hagia Sophia. We hadn’t planned on going there that day, but couldn’t resist. We first had some lunch to revive ourselves. Note: Emily actually drank a lot of tea, which was provided freely at the end of almost every meal we ate in Istanbul. She probably doubled her lifetime tea consumption. We then headed in. Visiting Hagia Sophia had been a long time dream for Russell, who had learned about its storied history as a child.
Built as the largest church in the world under Justinian in the 6th century, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque in the 15th century with the conquest of Istanbul under Sultan Mehmed II. It was transformed into a museum in 1935 under Atatürk, who is still widely admired, even revered, for his modernization, and secularizing, of Turkey. Emily had visited the museum in 1988 when she was on Semester at Sea. In 2020, Erdoğan converted it back to a mosque in a show of power and religious conservatism. Worshipers can enter the bottom floor of Hagia Sophia for free; visitors are limited to the upper floor and need to buy pricy tickets.
We later learned that the bulbs in the chandeliers had been white, but were replaced with warm yellow bulbs by Ben Affleck when he filmed Argo there.
There are still remnants of the mosaics and paintings which had adorned the church. The image of Jesus and Mary is covered by sail cloth so it is not visible by worshipers, but can be seen on the second floor.
After visiting the building itself, we went to the Hagia Sophia Experience Museum, for which we had accidentally bought tickets. It seemed like it would be a really cheesy 3-D immersion experience, but actually gave a really good history of the building. We then walked home for desperately needed rest.
For dinner, we went to a kebab place just down the block from our hotel that served one main dish: lamb skewers with bread. Delicious! Before bed, we went up to the narrow viewing terrace of our hotel for a nighttime view of the city. What an amazing first day!
Emily and Russell's Travel Blog 