A Great Day Out

 BigChefs Restaurant, near Hilton Hotel, 29-04-2026

My guide, Merve, and I at the Hagia Sophia. Had to have our heads covered. 

Well I have had a fabulous day!  I got up pretty early to be sure I'd be in time, and caught an uber to meet my guide, Merve (I splashed out and booked a private tour) at 930am at the German Fountain.

This is the roof of the German fountain. All around the bottom are taps for washing before praying

We began with some history, which I've already largely forgotten, but including the three different names of Istanbul (Byzantium, Constaninople, and Stambou). We walked around what was once an arena where they used to have chariot races. The arena had various monuments to symbolise taking over various countries. The Egyptian monument took 33 years to be brought here from Egypt. You can see on the photo of this base below some images of how they got it here, and also of the chariot races. Half of the monument got lost on the journey.

This is the Egyptian monument

The base of the monument - See here they are pulling the very large pillar onto a boat

Here you can see the pictures of the chariot races

Next we went to the Blue Mosque, which was stunning. It is still an active mosque so I learned all about the praying, which people do five times a day according to the sun. You can hear when the time is right because an enormous wail-like sound comes out of a giant megaphone, which is the cue. There is a big focus on cleanliness so people need to wash before they pray, and the area people pray on is pristine (we had to all remove our shoes). They had a saying along the lines of cleanliness is next to godliness but I cant quite recall it now. On Fridays it’s a special day, so many thousands of people come to the mosque to pray.

Outside the blue mosque - built in just 7 years!

Once, all of the panels were this blue colour. Hence the name of the mosque

 A very beautiful building!

Stained glass windows everywhere. And see the chandeliers with ostrich eggs hanging. Why? They were used because the smell kept the spiders away!

Over 20,000 blue tiles- each one took some ridiculous amount of time to be made. 

Then the Hagia Sophia (divine wisdom: Hagia means divine, and sophia - coming from philosophy- means wisdom) which had mosaics that were 1100 years old! It was originally a Christian building, which is why the mosaics are all about Jesus but was converted to a mosque at some point in time. Mosaics are quite a big thing in Turkey. In fact some of the mosaic tesserae (smalti) that I bought for my campervan trip were Turkish.

Ancient moscaic. Jesus has an old face in this because age means wisdom and Jesus was apparently wise from birth. Jesus is always the one with the crosses in the circle around the head

Another mosaic- here you see various kings bringing gifts

This is the oldest mosaic depicting Jesus (with the crosses) getting gifts again I think

The plan had then been to go to Topkapi Palace but I vetoed that as my brain was already spinning from the facts. I suggested instead we do the Basilica Cistern which someone had recommended. Good call on my part because this was fascinating... 

It is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns underneath the city - the cistern had hundreds of huge marble pillars, and once would have been full of water to be used in case of emergencies, if other water supplies were cut off. 

In this case they ran out of materials to build the column, so chucked together all sorts of random left overs. Hence the side-ways and upside-down Medusa heads. In the roof there were holes because, even though they weren’t mean to because muslims are only meant to use running water, people would dig down into the cistern and use the water. 

In the Basilica Cistern

Here you see a sideways Medusa head - believed to be just a remnant used because materials were scarce

Another Medusa head, this one upside down

Medusa has now become a symbol for the cistern

We had lunch in a genuinely Turkish place full of Turkish people – excellent food for both of us for the price of $20. You pay a lot more than this in the tourist places!

Next was the Granda Bazaar, with 4500 shops! Enroute, we did the typical thing where the guide takes you to her mates’ place and we had tea, a demonstration of how to make the pottery, of course all intended to make you feel guilty if you don’t buy something. I thought ‘what the heck’ and bought a small special jug. I honestly cant remember how much I paid for it but the guide was quite impressed with my bargaining. I think it was around $250 – which is a ridiculous amount to pay for a jug – but heh, in the moment, it seemed a good idea!

Guy demonstrating making ceramics - apparently studying this at University

In the shop where we were given tea and ëncouraged" to buy things! I loved these large circular sun decanters, but he quoted over $US800 for one!

The same logic led me to several further purchases in the Grand Bazaar including: a jacket for Melissa (I think around $80) and one for me (similar price); a cashmere scarf for Suzy (around $60); a beautiful table cloth ( I think this was around $300); and a fake Louis Vitton bag for Talia (I think around $185). The kids presents will be part of their Xmas presents. I actually never quite grasped the translation rate – it was very vague in my mind – instead I focused on trying to get the price down by 50% (which is what the guide had advised). I don’t think I was doing my best bargaining with the guide watching and with uncertainty over the actual price!

Honestly I could see myself going quite mad shopping here as the variety of leather, silver, gold, textiles, and ceramics is amazing. Lucky I have run out of time 😊

Entrance to the Grand Bazaar

Many fake handbags! 

This is Merve and I trying on jackets

Some modern random mosaic on the wall

Thereafter the guide left me and I got an uber home. We crawled back very slowly as the traffic was shocking – it would have been just as fast to walk except I was all walked out. I had a short rest, talked to Mark, early dinner at BigChefs, and now a last drink on the rooftop bar.

Tomorrow I will have an easy morning and will not attempt too much, and then I will head to the airport at checkout time around 12pm.

View from the rooftop bar where I had a beer on my last night

Mountains from the plane on the way home