It was an early morning for “part 2” of Istanbul. We were on the bus by 7:15 am and heading for the “Bridge”. There are two suspension bridges over the Straight of Bosphorus, which is the waterway between the Med and the Black Sea. Part of our tour was to travel over the ‘old’ bridge or the one to the south that you see from the City. It is a 4-lane bridge and they enjoy morning traffic just like we do. We stopped for a photo op and got our close-up photos of the bridge. Our tour guide explained that a lot of the locals live on the Asia side and work on the Europe side. They either take a bridge or one of the local ferries to work each day.
We then ventured to the mosques. First, we visited Hagia Sophia or Saint Sophia. This was a Christian church, turned mosque, and is now a museum. It is a beautiful building…the colors, the mix of Christian and Muslim features, and the way the light streams in the windows is wonderful.
Next, we crossed the way to the Blue Mosque. We were pretty disappointed with the name. The outside is a simple grey and the inside has a number of blue flowered tiles, which is how it got its name, but it was not overwhelmingly blue as we were expecting. We did walk through the square of the mosque and then removed our shoes to enter the mosque itself. It is amazing how massive all the features are and how many domes makes up the interior.
The next part of our tour included a “carpet show”. Many rugs are made in Turkey and they are extremely proud of this tradition and product. They have shows to explain the knotting, the different types of materials, and just to show you all the various colors and patterns (then of course to try to see if you want to purchase one). It was an interesting process and the people are very gracious.
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