The Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace

     After a buffet breakfast Esin, our guide, met us in the lobby of the hotel. Esin is 51 years old, but looks like she is about 40. She wore medium-blue corduroy pants, a dark blue winter jacket, a brown scarf and brown leather boots. Our first stop was the Blue Mosque, just on the other side of the Hagia Sophia, which is right across the street from our hotel. On the way we stopped by a fountain in front of the Hagia Sophia for a group photo.
    
The Blue Mosque was built by Sultan Ahmet I beginning in 1609 and completed in 1617. His goal was to out-do the Hagia Sophia across the square, and some say he did. The mosque gets its name from the 20,000 blue and white Iznik tiles that line the interior, including the magnificent dome. The Blue Mosque is surrounded by six minarets, clearly outdoing the mere four minarets that were placed around Hagia Sophia by Mehmet the Conqueror. Esin explained that a mosque need only have one minaret for the call to prayer, and that more minarets indicate a higher-level mosque. However, once the Blue Mosque had six minarets, it was then tied for first place with the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, which would not do at all. So the Sultan sent the Blue Mosque's architect, Mehmat Aga, to Mecca to build a seventh minaret for Masjid al-Haram. The Blue Mosque is known by that name only to tourists; the locals call it Sultanahmet Camii, or Sultan Ahmet's Mosque. In fact, the name of the whole neighborhood is Sultanahment, after the mosque.
      We walked through the Blue Mosque's courtyard into the Hippodrome, a Byzantine race track with seating for 30-40,000 people. Most of the Hippodrome is gone; the most notable remaining feature is the Dikilitas, or Egyptian Obelisk, which was moved from Luxor, where it was originally erected in the 15th century BC to honor Thutmose III. Theodosius I had the obelisk shipped to Constantiople in 390 A.D., although only the top two-thirds made the trip because the whole obelisk was too big to fit on a fourth-century Roman ship. A frieze around the base of the obelisk shows Theodosius offering a laurel wreath to the victor of a chariot race.
     Another obelisk in the Hippodrome is the Orme Sutun, or Column of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. It was once covered with gilt bronze, which was looted by crusaders during the disastrous Fourth Crusade in 1204 or shortly thereafter. One of the more interesting, though  less spectacular, objects in the Hippodrome is the Serpentine Column, which consists of bronze serpents (the upper parts are missing) taken from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, where it was erected in the 5th century B.C. It was made from the bronze swords of the defeated Persian army.

From the Hippodrome we walked to the Topkapi Palace, which sits on the Seraglio Point, the very tip of Europe, between the Golden Horn and the Bosporus. Topkapi was home to as many as 5,000 residents, so it was a city within a city. Among its most notable features, besides the famous harem, are the world's seventh-largest diamond and the vest of the Prophet Muhammad. Breathtaking views of the Bosporus, the Golden Horn, the Sea of Marmara and asiatic Istanbul reveal themselves from the Topkapi's balconies and terraces.

Topkapi was built between 1459 and 1465 by Sultan Mehmet II the conqueror. The palace consists of four successive couryards, each one more exclusive than the one before. We passed through the Imperial Gate into the first courtyard. One of the first things we noticed was the profusion of flowers - white hyacinth, grape hyacinth, tulips, and pansies. The Turks introduced the tulip from Europe, having brought it with them from central Asia.

The first courtyard is also called the Court of the Janissaries, the imperial guard. Aya Irini church, built on the site of the first church in Byzantium, is in the first courtyard, as is the Archaeological Museum, which we will visit tomorrow.

The second courtyard is shaded by cypress trees and contains the the entrance to the harem. This too is where the sultan would hold councils of state. The ruler of the harem was the Valide Sultan, the sultan's mother. She presided over about 1,000 women, many of whom were servants to the sultan's concubines.

The Gate of Felicity leads to the third courtyard. Only the sultan and grand vizier were allowed to pass through this gate. The third courtyard contains the sultan's audience hall and the treasury. The Chamber of Sacred Relics contains some of the holiest relics of Islam. The most amazing to me were the staff of Moses, with which he parted the Red Sea, and the sword of King David that was used after he upgraded from the sling. However, for Muslim visitors far more significant were hairs from Prophet Muhammad's beard, his sword, a cast of his footprint, his teeth, and his vest, which is kept behind glass in a golden casket.

The "Gilded Cage" was where the sultan's brothers lived in confinement after the old custom of murdering the new sultan's brothers was abandoned in the 17th century. Although they were prevented from interacting with the outside world, they lived in comfort among stained-glass windows, mother-of-pearl cabinets, and gilded doors. Topkapi was abandoned in 1856 when Abdulmecid I moved his court to Dolmabahce Palace.

The fourth courtyard contains terraces with beautiful views of the old city walls, the Bosporus, the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. Esin led us into the Baghdad Pavilion, built by Murat IV in 1638 after he took Baghdad from the Persians.

We said goodbye to Esin and stopped for lunch at the Turing Cafe. We sat outside and soaked up the April sunshine. Abby and I had chicken sandwiches, while Sarah had tuna salad and Mark had an apple "pie,"  more of a turnover with a shortbread crust. Three of us sipped on Turkish tea, served in traditional glasses, while Abby drank lemonade. Our chicken sandwiches consisted of chopped chicken white meat in a light curry sauce, with red peppers on a very fresh sesame-seed bun. Abby fed part of her sandwich to the restaurant's stray cat. On our walk back to the hotel, we passes tulip trees and almond trees in full bloom.

After resting for a few hours in our room, we took a taxi at 7:00 p.m. to the Mikla Restaurant on the top floor of the Marmara Pera Hotel. This restaurant is known for its "new Anatolian cuisine." We had prawns, lamb chops and beef tenderloin. The lamb chops that Sarah and I had were served with morel mushrooms which, in Abby's words, brought tears to our eyes. There were enough morels that we each had a couple. The most photogenic dish was the bread, which was served with goat's milk butter, salt, feta cheese, and olive oil. My dessert was vanilla ice cream and chocolate mousse served with jellied plum and wafer-thin cookies. Amazing. We returned to our hotel at about 10:30 afeter a very successful day.