Istanbul: Neither Constantinople nor a Layover City!

Istanbul
55.1 mi (88.6 km)*

More 2022 Adventures

Herkese merhaba!

The last stage of my first global circumnavigation has begun! This morning, I left Delhi super early for my 6 hour and 40 minute flight across entire realities, rising above the thick brown that covered the Indian subcontinent and flowed out over the harsh deserts of Afghanistan, faded over the mountains of Tehran, then dissipated into clear, puffy clouds over Istanbul, my layover stop on the way home!

Spanning two continents and so many cultures, the end of the Silk Road and the starting point of many empires, Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, formerly Byzantium, may rightly have earned its title of “Center of the World!” So it made sense that I would be starting my tour of this storied city at the Milion pillar, the last piece of a monument designated as Mile 0 by Emperor Constantine I! Here, I met up with my guide, Önder, for a tour of Istanbul that made “breakneck” feel like a pleasant stroll!

With my flight already an hour behind, we had to wait even longer to visit the Hagia Sophia, a must-see in Istanbul, because in 2020, it lost its museum status and became a working mosque once again. That meant we only had time between the midday Salat az-Dhuhr and afternoon Salat al-Asr to see as much as we could of Istanbul’s most famous sites!

Though it became a mosque in 1453 after Mehmed the Conquerer sacked Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia was built by Byzantine emperor, Justinian I, in honor of the Holy Wisdom! For over a thousand years, it was the largest cathedral in the world, its massive domes inspiring many other cathedrals, as well as mosques and at least three synagogues! Inside, it’s rumored to house a plank from the home of the Virgin Mary, a mysterious door where an Orthodox priest vanished, and a pillar that contains either a trapped angel or the healing tears of the Virgin Mary, depending on whom you ask!

Working mosque or no, inside this spectacular cathedral was full of visitors from around the world, all with their shoes removed, ladies with their hair covered, and very few masks, which felt weird after almost three years of the COVID-19 pandemic! But Turkey’s case count had fallen from a height of over 111,000 new cases per day in February to just over 1,000 for the entire country today! Meanwhile, back in LA, there were over 4,600 new cases today! But I couldn’t get too lost in numbers when there were calligraphic scripts lit by shining chandeliers and other myths and marvels to ponder.

After a good while enjoying the inside of the Hagia Sophia, and with no real sense of the haste we needed to make, we crossed the fountained park, lined with corn vendors and the occasional stray dog, to behold the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque! Unlike the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque was built as a mosque and has remained a mosque. It was a consolation gift from Sultan Ahmed I to himself after losing the Ottoman-Safavid War to Persia in 1618. Designed by Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa, this mosque is one of only five in Turkey with six minarets, possibly because of a mixup between altın (gold) and altı (six)! Inside, the Blue Mosque was lined with over 20,000 handmade ceramic tiles shaped like 50 different kinds of tulips! It was hard to see all of them, because of ongoing restoration work and the jostling of the shoe-carrying crowd, but it was indeed spectacular to behold!

Also under renovation was the old Byzantine hippodrome, built in 203 CE as a public arena! Here, chariot races, gladiatorial combat, and big ceremonies took place all through the Roman and Byzantine years. The hippodrome had a capacity of 40,000 spectators, if you can believe that! After Ottoman takeover, the hippodrome became a public square, At Meydanı, or Horse Square, which it remains today with just a few landmarks still in place.

One such landmark was the Obelisk of Thutmose III III, brought here in 390 CE by Emperor Theodosius I! It had originally been part of the great temple of Karnak with inscriptions celebrating the pharaoh’s victory over the Assyrian city of Mitanni in 1450 BCE! It’s in remarkable shape for being over 3,500 years old!

By this point, Önder started to get impatient, and I didn’t know why. Sunset wasn’t for another 5 hours, and the tour company’s itinerary had a ton more stops. It turned out that tours didn’t go until sunset, only until 5:00! What an unpleasant surprise! That gave us one hour only to see the rest of the itinerary! We blazed past the Topkapı Palace, home to the Ottoman sultans from 1453 until 1860, barely getting a glimpse of the famous fountain of Ahmet III out front!

We raced through the palace garden, barely getting to glimpse the shrubbery before we were off palace property entirely!

Gülhane Park was peaceful, tranquil, right out of a Seurat painting, until Önder and I charged through it like wild buffalo! I’d really hoped to see more of Istanbul during my layover, but I barely had enough time to keep my hat on!

I did have to pause long enough to take a photo with Mustafa Atatürk, military leader of World War I and leader who guided Turkey out of Ottoman rule into a modern, secular republic! He moved the capital to Ankara, changed the Turkish alphabet, made public education free, and introduced civil rights for women, including universal suffrage! He was also the one who made the Hagia Sophia a museum for all, a policy which is now undone.

We took the packed light rail—another shocker after three years of COVID—to the Spice Bazaar, passing an original Orient Express train we wouldn’t have time to see because we had to visit Önder’s friend’s tea and Turkish delight shop. We then rushed through the Spice Bazaar and very briefly looked at the “New Mosque,” which was technically started 12 years before the Blue Mosque but wasn’t complete until 49 years after. What’s neat about this mosque is its connection to the Sultanate of Women period (1533 to 1656). It was ordered by Queen Mother, Safiye Sultan, and completed under Queen Mother, Turhan Sultan, who also ordered construction of the Spice Bazaar to fund its upkeep!

And then, just like that, the tour was over! We got back on the light rail, walked past the Topkapı Palace, and I got loaded into a big, black suburban for the hour-long ride to the Park Inn by Radisson to wait out the rest of the day. Folks, Istanbul, and really Turkey as a whole, isn’t a layover city! With only a few short hours, I missed out on so much, from the Grand Bazaar to the Basilica Cistern, even beyond city limits to the ruins of Troy and Ephesus, not to mention the incredibly ancient Göbekli Tepe! If I had any sense, I’d book another week or two here, but alas, my time for this adventure had come to a close.

Only the adventure wasn’t over yet! I got to the airport super early with three hours to spare, enjoyed some baklava and coffee, and wandered to the gate half an hour before my flight, only to get asked for my PCR test results! What PCR test results? You know, the results necessary to enter the USA! I’ve never run so fast in my life, first to a station that wasn’t open for another hour and a half, then out through passport control to Gate 14, where I begged for the fastest possible swab. Then the clinician squeezed me for 200 lira in the bathroom to expedite my results! Who squeezes a beaver in a public restroom?! Normally, I’d be mad, but I only had 10 minutes before my flight left! I took my “results” and hustled back up to security, only to find out my boarding pass wouldn’t let me through a second time, and I’d technically bribed a government official for nothing.

The folks at the Turkish Airlines counter (Turkish Airlines has a monopoly on all flights into and out of Turkey) were baffled, not that they were talking to a beaver, but that I’d missed a flight! It took an hour to figure out how I missed my flight, despite my explanations, but they did eventually re-book me. Five lines, four passport checks, and a shuttle later, I was on the plane. They kept the lights off the entire flight, but it didn’t matter at this point. I was on my way home, completing my first circumnavigation of the globe and one heck of an international journey. Now for a few weeks of rest!

Bir sonraki maceraya kadar!