Thankfully, I slept about 7 hours last night with only a couple of interruptions. Dan slept well, too, so we were glad to be ready for another full day. We noticed as we were getting ready to go down for breakfast that there was a submarine in the Bosphorous Strait, shown below, taken from our hotel room window. Not something you see everyday for sure.

We left about 8:40 and took the same bus/tram combo into Old Town that we did on Monday, only this time we knew exactly what we were doing. Even got off at the same stop. We used Rick Steves guide which has a section called Old Town Back Streets Walk to make our way around this morning.

The big thing on the agenda was the Grand Bazaar. We’re not big shoppers and were prepared to be disappointed, and in that our expectations were exceeded. But it’s something you sort of have to do. It’s the oldest shopping center in the world, been around since the 1400’s and has over 4000 merchants. Rick’s guide had warned that it had unfortunately been overtaken by tourism and that was obvious the moment we walked in. We would have loved to have been there 100 years ago when there were, I’d imagine, a much wider variety of goods than we saw today. If you aren’t interested in jewelry, carpets, tea sets, scarves, or schlocky lamps, there’s probably not much for you here. And the smells. Smoking is allowed there and lots of merchants do. So between the cigarettes, mothballs, spices, soaps and colognes, it was a bit much for the two of us who have increasingly gotten more sensitive to strong scents over the years. I also get overwhelmed when there’s that many small things in one place. Didn’t help that it was so repetitive. The merchants were aggressive but mostly polite, some funny (“just give me your money!”). But hearing “excuse me, please, come see” over and over again wears on you after awhile. Are we just getting old? We ended up staying about an hour out of some weird sense of “maybe it will get better” but it never did. We only took a few photos below, and I added a couple from the internet.

We kept wondering how all these folks stay in business with so many selling the same things? We don’t understand. I surmised that the people who do the best are the tea runners. Turks drink more tea than any other country, including UK or China, and that’s on full display in the Bazaar. Since the merchants can’t leave, there are guys running around everywhere delivering them their tea. Our guess is they do pretty well! Here’s a glass of Turkish hot tea if you’ve never seen one. They all look just like this.

Next we went to Suleymaniye Mosque. Depending on the source you read, it’s either the largest or 2nd largest mosque in Istanbul. It was completed in 1558, making it older than the Blue Mosque by about 100 years. It’s also #5 of TripAdvisor’s Things To Do list, but you’d never know it by the lack of crowds. Maybe because of that, we enjoyed this much more than the Blue Mosque. Seemed similar in size, the inner courtyard was creepily similar, and there was a simple charm about this one that we liked right away. It’s also on a hill – one of Istanbul’s “7 hills” which make up the city – and provides some great views.

We left here probably about Noon, maybe some before. For the next hour or so, we just walked around, again following the Rick Steves walk I mentioned earlier, and enjoyed this much more than the Grand Bazaar. Much of what we encountered felt more like where the locals shopped, a much wider variety of goods, and very little schlock. Dan bought a belt – just your every day plain black belt – at one place that he likes a lot, cost only about $6.

Next was a bus ride to a place about 20 minutes away. Next stop was Kariye Museum, or Chora Church. The outside of it is undergoing serious renovation and was essentially covered, so I stole the photo below from the internet. This is #13 overall on the Trip Advisor Things To Do list, and was on the museum pass we bought. We’re actually surprised it’s only #13, but understand why: it wasn’t the easiest thing to get to and is definitely not with the rest of the touristy stuff. You had to really want to get here and know where you’re going – there’s no stumbling into this.

The photo above I found on the internet. Today, it’s essentially covered while undergoing restoration. In the photo below, you can see the same minaret (added when it was a mosque; the minarets are where guys used to do the call to prayer from, its why all mosques had them; now it’s mostly tradition since the call is done electronically). I took this on our way out frankly because I didn’t know we were here when we got here so wouldn’t have known to take it then! See how the rest of the building is covered? It’s just at the end of some random residential street.

Above and below, also taken on the way out: the view from the intersection right before it. You can see Dan walking back towards the bus stop in the one below. Just a regular old neighborhood. This reminded me of the church in Milan where the Last Supper is, in that you’d never know there was something to look for.

Back to the church. It was built in the 400’s outside the first wall of Constantinople. “Chora” means “countryside” – so this was considered the boonies then. It’s one of the best examples on the planet of Byzantine mosaic art. The mosaics here reminded me of some we saw in the Hagia Sofia, and in the gift shop there’s a book that’s about those two churches-turned-mosque-now-museums, so I wasn’t imagining that.

All of the art is high on the wall or on the ceiling. The photo above is the more focused shot of the image on the right side of the ceiling in the photo below.

On our way back to the bus stop, we passed the Wall of Constantinople. We’d seen it earlier but didn’t have a frame of reference for it until we got to the church and read about its history. There aren’t any signs anywhere indicating what it is. It was pretty big although I just kept this one shot of it.

It was pretty early at this point, maybe only 2:30. We decided to head back to the hotel and rest a bit and then go out again. We took a bus ride through parts of the city we hadn’t seen yet, much of it very modern.

This was a pedestrian bridge over the busy street our hotel is essentially on. That’s it in the background along with the Bosphorus Strait.

The baths were good and we’re glad we did them. My attendant in particular had taught himself some English by practicing on the internet so he could communicate with guests better. He did pretty good. And even figured out that we were a couple. “He your partner?” he asked. And seemed very OK with it. Dan and I both agreed the best part of the bath was the bubbles. Luxurious is the only word that works. Except bath is really the wrong word, it’s really more of a scrub and a wash because you’re sitting against a wall but the area in front of you is open, you’re not in a tub. And they’re literally pouring bowls of water on you, warm and cold depending on where they are in the process. It was a good experience but we wouldn’t need to do it again. The massages were excellent and of course I’ll do those any time. We were there total over 2.5 hours. Reasonably priced, too.

We walked back to the Beskitas neighborhood we were in last night to eat at a restaurant we’d scoped out then, about 2 miles. Again, fairly traditional Turkish food, but we like it. What they call meatballs but are really little beef patties. The big round thing they call sausage; was more like a very rich salami. Dan had chicken instead of the sausage. And a weird dessert of warm semolina not shown. Dessert aside, this is the best meal we’ve had out.