It was an amazing day. We went to the Blue Mosque, or Sultan Ahmed mosque. The moment I saw it I was reminded of some buildings from the star wars movies. Turns out it was actually used in the Second star wars: Attack of the Clones. We got to sit down in it and our tour guild talked a little bit about Islam and Mosques. After that we went to Topkapi Palace, Built by Sultan Mehmet II after his conquest of Istanbul in the 15th century. They’ve turned it into a museum, and they have tons very expensive artifacts and Jewelry. So expensive, says our tour guild, that there is no group in the world who is willing to insure the artifacts. There are items there that the Imams and Jewish Rabbis will tell you are. Included are: David’s Sword, Muhammad’s beard and teeth, the swords of several Caliphates, the arm and skull of John the beloved (in Golden cases that look like an arm or skull) Moses’s staff, drainage pipes from the Kabba, TONS of treasures with Gold, Diamonds, and Jewels, and a huge 60 or 80 carat something diamond. Well, even though I may not have believed any of the religious artifacts were real, they were still cool.
We also visited the largest Bazaar in the world, over 2,500 shops according to our tour guild (although Wikipedia says 4,000) and 58 covered streets. Everything there was a rip-off there though, so we kept on visiting things. One of the coolest things we got to see was an Egyptian Obelisk, which was 3,200 years old and still looks good as new. In fact, I thought it was fake at first, it looked so modern with it’s very sharp designs and corners. Very beautiful. One of only 5 outside Egypt. WE also visited a giant underwater cistern that had been used in ancient times and still stood. Apparently when Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine (Istanbul was called Constantinople under Constantine the Great, and was made his capital) the pagan temples were torn down and their blocks used to make structures like this. In the very back was2 large blocks carved with the face of Medusa.
At night we went out to a world famous Baklava store. Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of many layers filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey (I stole that sentence from Wikipedia). It was amazing! They had tons of different flavors and I tried them till I was sick.
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| Blue Mosque |
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| Sultan's Palace/ Museum |
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| Obilisk |
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| Baklava |
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| Underground cistern |
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