Here's his first full day in the City on the Bosphorus. Enjoy:
The next morning, after a restful night’s sleep (no jet lag!), Elena and I made our way down to the Sphendon’s restaurant area, really just a fairly large room adjacent to the courtyard, where breakfast was laid out. Apparently in Turkey, as in Russia, breakfast is a very important meal, and hotels pride themselves on their breakfast spreads. Even at the small Sphendon, there were two kinds of scrambled eggs, rolls and bread, vegetables, fruit, cheese, yogurt, cereal, cookies, and an orange breakfast drink. One of the desk clerks served us coffee (Elena) and tea (me). After we were fortified by the big breakfast, we showered, packed up, and walked over to the Obelisk.
We thought we might have to leave our luggage with the Obelisk’s desk staff for a while, but they told us our room was ready, so we decided to drop off our luggage in the room. Again, our room key activated the electricity. The room was very nice, a bit old-fashioned, but larger than the one at the Sphendon, including a small table and a couple of chairs, in case we wanted to have some tea and a chat. After dropping off our luggage in the room, Elena and I decided to check out the Hippodrome, which is a large pedestrian area just outside the Blue Mosque. It was just a 5 or 10 minute walk from the hotel. (Ricky picks hotels largely to make the touring more convenient, and the Obelisk was no exception.) Within a couple of minutes of finding the Hippodrome, a well-dressed, pleasant looking gentleman, probably in his late 30’s or early 40’s, came up to us, asked where we were from, and began to converse with us. He started to give us a good deal of information about the historical significance of the Hippodrome and he even took a couple of pictures of Elena and me. I thought he was just a local who was proud of his city and happy to share his knowledge with a couple of tourists. Silly me. It turned out this fellow owned a carpet store and a jewelry store and was slowly leading us to do some shopping there. His stores were located near a street of shops called the Arasta Bazaar, and that’s where we ended up. While I found the Istanbul residents to be very friendly and pleasant, many of them are also mildly aggressive salespeople. Anyway, gleaning that we weren’t interested in buying a carpet, our new friend led us to his jewelry store, which was staffed by 3 or 4 burly guys dressed like Mafiosi. Elena and I looked at the jewelry, mostly gold, and made appreciative sounds, but the merchandise was way out of our price range ($2000 American and up). So after viewing all the wares, we nodded and quietly made our exit.
After window shopping for a while longer at the Arasta Bazaar, we had lunch at another place recommended by Ricky, Buhara 93, which specializes in kabobs. Then it was back to the hotel to rest up before our 3:00 PM meeting with the whole Rick Steves “Istanbul in 7 days” tour group. The meeting was on the top floor of the Obelisk, which turned out to be the hotel’s restaurant/breakfast area as well. The area was surrounded by big windows and a class ceiling, and the view of Istanbul was spectacular. You could also go through a glass door to some outdoor tables and a viewing area. Our guide, whose name was Taylan (pronounced tie-lahn) was sitting in front of the tour participants, 19 people, mostly in their 50’s and 60’s, with a few in their 30’s and 40s. There was tea, coffee, and cookies for the participants. Taylan had everyone give a brief introduction. It turned out that many of the tour participants had been on one previous Rick Steves tour, including Elena and me (Paris, for us). One woman, though, had already been on eight of Ricky’s tours! Taylan gave us a brief rundown of our itinerary for the rest of the tour. By the time he was finished, an hour had passed, and he said we would meet in the lobby in 30 minutes to go on a brief tour of the Blue Mosque.
In the lobby, Taylan handed out listening devices (a little bigger than an Ipod) with an earpiece attached so we could easily hear him talk. Then we were off to the Blue Mosque. To enter the Blue Mosque, we had to remove our shoes and the women put on scarves to cover their hair. Plastic bags are provided for shoes, and scarves can be borrowed if a woman didn’t bring one. Women were also not supposed to wear short skirts. The Blue Mosque is modestly decorated in its interior. It mostly seemed to me like a big, functional room for prayer, and some people were praying near the front of the mosque, though apparently tourists are not allowed to enter during the main times for prayer. There is a barrier between the observation area and the area for praying. Taylan provided some history of the mosque, and after a half hour or so, we left the Blue Mosque.
We then proceeded to a restaurant for a group meal. It was located roughly between the Blue Mosque and our hotel, so it was very conveniently located. (There are lots of restaurants as well as hotels in this area of the old town, also called Sultanahmet.) Taylan conferred with the wait staff to make sure the food wouldn’t cause me any problems due to my lactose intolerance, and the food was very good. (The price of dinner was included in the tour, but any additional soft drinks, wine, or beer we had to pay for ourselves. Most of our companions did drink wine. For a country that was “officially” non-alcoholic, there was never a problem getting wine or beer.)
After dinner, Taylan said we should all be sure to go to the back of the restaurant, because after passing under an arched entrance, one could walk through a number of rooms of ancient ruins. It appeared that archaeological work was still being done in these rooms, and they were pretty dusty and dirty, but it was remarkable to move from a modern restaurant to ancient ruins in just a few steps. We all then returned to the hotel to call it a night.
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