Taksim & Bosperus

This morning our group met a young man who is a refugee from Syria, currently living in Istanbul. He told us the story of his arrest, imprisonment, and torture in Syria for the “crime” of happening to be a student at Aleppo University at the time of demonstrations against the government on that campus. He discussed the political situation in his country and the difficulties faced by refugees. It was quite interesting, but not uplifting.

Next, we visited Hagia Sophia — once the largest and grandest church in all of Christendom, then with the conquest of 1453, converted to one of the premiere mosques in Islam, and today, a museum for all.

We saw this magnificent place in 2012, but it is so amazing that we gladly visited again.

Restoration is ongoing at Hagia Sophia, and one of the new things was the recovery of Christian symbols that had been painted over with Islamic patterns more than 500 years ago.

Of course, Christian mosaics more than 1,000 years old were preserved when plastered over, and some of these are now visible, as well.

From the Sultanahmet area our entire group took a tram, and then a modern funicular, to Taksim Square. The tram was old hat for us, but a new experience for most of the group. It was the first time that we had crossed into the Golden Horn section of the city.

The area around Taksim is very cosmopolitan, with many 18th and 19th century buildings in European style, and many stores bearing Western names.

The bus took the group back to the Spice Market, where we met our tour leader’s wife and son. They came to this area to bid him farewell, as he will be traveling with us away from Istanbul for the next 10 days or so.

Most of the group stayed to shop in the Spice Market — this group seems to like to shop a lot more than any other OAT group we’ve ever been with. Mark and Mary stayed in the Spice Market all of 10 minutes, then we crossed the street over to Eminonu to catch a 90 minute boat ride up the Bosporus.

This was a very pleasant and relaxing excursion, although the breeze brought a bit of chill to the air by the end. A highlight was seeing the New Palace, built in the 18th century in European style, that was used by the last half dozen sultans prior to the fall of the empire and the establishment of the Turkish republic.

Once back on shore, we rode the tram back to Sultanahmet and walked to the restaurant street near our hotel. We picked out a different one from where we had eaten two nights before with the Australian couple. But the food at this place was not as good.

Nevertheless, we were fed, and returned to the hotel to prepare for a very early flight tomorrow morning.