The name Istanbul, the final
destination of the Orient Express, conjures up a romantic, exotic and
thrilling image befitting the only city in the world to span two
continents. In fact, while it is a very modern city, the most densely
populated of Turkey with a population of 12 million, the Byzantine and
Ottoman origins of the city blend with present day cultures to create a
sense of modernity that stands on two millennia of richness, turbulence
and intrigue. It is no mistake that the historic areas of Istanbul are
on UNESCO's World Heritage List. When planning your travels in Turkey, in order to better
appreciate and comprehend this historical and cultural cacophony, why
not go to the Asian side of Turkey first, (a good, easy starting point is Cappadocia)
and then when you visit Istanbul for a couple of days before your return
flight, the sights and museums will fit perfectly into your new-found
feel for this country.
Haghia Sophia, or Church of the Divine Wisdom,
with its 100 foot wide dome, was consecrated on December 26th, 537,
after taking only 5 years, 11 months and 10 days to construct. It was a
feat of engineering that would not be matched for a thousand years. It
used to contain the emperor's throne on the spot that was considered to
be the centre of the world. The church only just survived being
ransacked by the Fourth Crusade, whose soldiers broke up and removed the
altar and carried off the gold and silver. In 1453, Mehmet the Conqueror
stopped his own soldiers from looting it and turned it into a mosque.
The walls were whitewashed, and the mosaics were only rediscovered
during renovations in the 1930's, when Ataturk immediately converted it into a
museum for posterity.
For Byzantine mosaics, this church cannot be beaten.
Chora, in the sense of the dedication of the church, refers to Christ
and the Mother of God, but literally means dwelling place or
land of the living. It was originally built in the 12th century, but
rebuilt between 1315 and 1321, and the frescos and mosaics date from
this time. Among them, a series depicts the childhood of Mary, important
in the Eastern church where it originates from the popular second
century apocryphal gospel of Saint James.
The Hippodrome was the Byzantine racecourse and
centre of civilian life (in Latin, hippo means horse and
dromos means to run). Between races, spectators would
watch dancing bears, jugglers and tight-rope walkers. Executions and
public punishments also took place here. Today, three monuments remain:
the obelisk of Theodosius I, brought from Thebes, stands on a marble
base that shows the emperor and his family in the imperial box; the
Serpent Column, which once stood outside the temple of Apollo in Delphi,
commemorates the Greek victory over the Persians; and the stone obelisk,
the Column of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, erected in 940 CE, that was once
encased in bronze guilt but stripped by the crusaders.
The Basilica cistern is the largest of the forty
known in the city. It stored drinking water used in dry summers, and had
outgoing pipes which watered the gardens of the imperial palace. It is
140m x 70m, can hold 80,000 cubic meters of water, and has 336 columns,
many of which were pilfered from other ancient buildings, hence the
Corinthian capitals and two Medusa heads. After the Ottoman conquest,
the cistern fell into disuse, but was "rediscovered" by a Frenchman in
1545 who became curious about fresh fish being sold in nearby streets.
It seems the locals caught them here, and it provided the water for
their many wells, too. The scene with James Bond crossing a cistern by
boat in the movie From Russia with Love was filmed here.
Galata Tower, erected in 1348 by the Genoese to
protect their colony, although not strictly Byzantine connects
intimately with the decline of the Empire. The Genoese were traders who
competed with the Venetians. Michael Palaeologus recruited their support
to drive out the Crusaders, and in return he gave them the whole
district of Galata, granting them the status of a semi-independent
colony. When it came to the final showdown against Mehmet the Conqueror,
however, the Genoese maintained neutrality and they were once again
rewarded, being allowed to retain their businesses and churches.
On June 3rd 1912, when the destruction left by a
terrible fire was cleared, the lost remains of the Byzantine Great
Palace were revealed. They included the largest and most magnificent
6th century mosaics ever discovered anywhere. The remains were from the
floor of an open courtyard surrounded by a portico. Forty thousand small
stones were used in every square meter, which means that a total of 80
million were used in all. Today, only a small fraction of the original
survives, but these mosaics show amazing scenes such as gazelles drinking water,
bears feeding their young, shepherds milking their goats , a small boy
playing with his dog, and Byzantine soldiers hunting tigers.
The Aqueduct of Valens was part of the Emperor's 4th
century program of improving the water supply to the city by bringing
water from reservoirs in the Belgrade Forest to cisterns in the city
centre. More than six of its original 10 kilometers are still standing,
mainly because it was well maintained and used right up to the end of
the 19th century.
Topkapi Palace, built by Mehmet the Conquerer between
1459 and 1465, was the nerve-centre of the
Ottoman Empire for 400 years until the construction of Dolmabache Palace. Like the Alhambra in Granada, it consists of various buildings
arranged around a series of courtyards. At one time over 50,000
people worked here.
The Conqueror's Pavilion now houses the treasury,
where you can see the 5th largest diamond in the world. The Pavilion of
the Holy Mantle contains the Holy Relics of a footprint,
hair, tooth,
mantle and standard of the Prophet Mohammed as well as swords of the
first four caliphs, all brought here in 1517 by Selim the Grim.
The harem, or forbidden area, was where the Sultan's wives,
children and female slaves lived under the control of the sultan's
mother. The decoration in a number of the rooms is very beautiful. Topkapi is at the same time a palace and a museum of the most wonderful
Ottoman artifacts.
Dolmabahce Palace, built by Sultan Abdul Mecdit in
1856, stands romantically on the shores of the Bosphorus. This is the
exact spot from where Mehmet the Conqueror launched his attack on
Constantinople. The harbor that was once here is now filled up, hence the name: Dolmabahce means filled garden.
The European influence on Turkish art is obvious both
in the architecture and in the paintings, but other aspects including
the layout, with separate men's and women's quarters, are typically
Ottoman. Here, you'll see the heaviest chandelier in the world, the
enormous Hereke carpets, once made only for the Ottoman sultans, and the
clocks, which all show 9:05, the time that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
passed away here on November 10th 1938.
Beylerbeyi Palace, the summer residence of the
sultans on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, was completed in 1865 by
Sultan Abdul Aziz. The imperial road to the white marble palace passes
through a 130-meter long tunnel that was constructed during the time of
Mahmut II, earlier in the century. The sultan's European visitors loved
the palace, and Empress Eugenie had its windows copied in the Tuileries
in Paris.
At the start of the 20th century Abdulhamid
II, who had been the first sultan to receive a Christian woman at his
dining table, was deposed and eventually imprisoned here. He spent his
time carving some of the furniture in the harem (women's quarters) and
the selamlik (men's quarters). This palace is particularly famous for
its twisting central staircase.
The most famous symbol of Istanbul, the Blue Mosque,
which was completed in 1617, gets its popular name from the main color
of the 20,000 or so Iznik tiles decorating its interior. Its real
name, however, is Sultanahmet Mosque, after its sponsor whose tomb is next door.
This mosque is unusual because of its six minarets. In Ottoman times,
only the sultan and his immediate family could build mosques with
multiple minarets, but no one had dared to put six before, as this
was considered a sacrilegious rival to the 6-minareted mosque in Mecca.
So, why 6 minarets? One story claims that the slightly deaf architect
misheard the Sultan: golden minarets (altin minare) was understood as
six minarets (alti minare). What a sweet mistake!
This great mosque, commissioned in 1550 by Suleyman
the Magnificent, was built in 7 years by Turkey's best-loved and
greatest ever architect, Sinan, who said, "I have built thee, oh
Emperor, a mosque that will remain on the face of the Earth until the
final judgment day." Architect Sinan's tomb is in the courtyard outside,
and not far away in a walled garden lie the Sultan Suleyman and his
wife, Roxelana.
Rustem Pahsa Mosque, built in 1561, is one of
Istanbul's most attractive smaller mosques. Inside, the highest quality
tiles from the finest period of Iznik's production take you a world away
from the bustling streets outside. Who was the architect? Sinan, of
course!
Rumeli Hisar, or the Strait Cutter, was built
by the daring young sultan Mehmet the Conqueror as part of his plan to
attack Constantinople. In it he stationed a new type of cannon that had
previously been offered by its inventor to the Byzantine Emperor, who could
not afford it. With this new weapon, Mehmet promptly sank a Venetian ship, and went
on to conquer the city. After the conquest, Rumeli Hisar was turned into
a prison before falling into disuse. In 1953, the walls were restored
and the space inside beautifully landscaped.
Istanbul's Archaeology Museum has one of the richest
collections of classical artifacts in the world, including the
famous sarcophagus with friezes depicting Alexander the Great. There are also
many earlier items of note, including the world's first written peace
treaty signed after the Battle of Kadesh by the Hittites and the
Egyptian Pharaoh
Ramses II, and many of the other Hittite cuneiform clay
tablets found at Hattusha that are on the Memory of the World List. (A copy of this peace treaty has been placed above the entrance to
the UN building in New York.) There is also a beautiful tiled corridor
with animal reliefs dating from the reign of the Babylonian ruler
Nebuchadnezzar (604-562 BCE).
The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts holds over
40,000 items from Mamluk, Seljuk and Ottoman periods (8th to 19th
centuries) and gives a fascinating insight into the cultural and
religious history of Turkey. In the ethnographic section is a black
goat-hair tent, the type still used by nomads in eastern
Turkey today. The upper floors have many
fascinating old Turkish carpets,
illuminated manuscripts, Turkish miniatures, and decorated wooden Koran
cases. All of these are housed in the former Palade of Ibrahim Pasha
(1524).
This private museum, located in a late 19th century
Ottoman timber house, combines two important collections. Sadberk Hanim,
the wife of the Turkish industrialist Vehbi Koc, bequeathed that her
private collection of Ottoman embroideries and costumes should be made
into a museum. Later, the museum purchased the collection of Huseyin
Kocabas, containing artifacts from 6,000 years ago until the end of the
19th century. These collections are displayed in two sections:
Antiquities, and Islamic and Ottoman.
The Grand Bazaar is the largest covered bazaar in the
world, and is laid out in the traditional way so that shops selling
the same type of goods are grouped together in one place. Rivalry between such close
neighbors is controlled by strict
laws laid down by trade guilds which state that each shop can support
just one owner and his apprentice; in this way, small businesses are
maintained and competition is reduced.
From the earliest Ottoman times, this bazaar was the commercial centre
of Istanbul. The oldest part, the Ich Bedesten, dates from the time of
the conquest, and the Sandal Bedesten was added later during the reign
of Suleyman the Magnificent.
The Spice Bazaar, also known as the Egyptian Bazaar,
was constructed in the 1660's as part of the New Mosque complex, and the
rents from the traders went towards the upkeep of the mosque and its
school, bath and public fountains. This bazaar gets its name from the
fact that it sells spices, which were subject to customs duties from
Cairo. Saffron and royal jelly as well as dried fruit and nuts are on
sale, but you'll no longer be able to buy gunpowder to cure you
hemorrhoids; this was banned after several careless shopkeepers
accidentally destroyed their own premises!
Maiden's Tower is named after the young princess who
was kept here by her over-protective father who believed a soothsayer's
prophesy that she would die from a snake bite. He felt that both the water
and the height of the tower would form an impenetrable barrier and protect
his daughter. Unfortunately, a servant inadvertently transported a snake
over to the island in a basket of fruit. It seems that fate was
inescapable! More recently, the place has been used as a quarantine
tower, a lighthouse, a customs point, and a toll centre. One of the
scenes from the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies was shot
here.
A trip up the Bosphorus towards the Black Sea, the
stretch of water that links Europe to Asia, is a magical experience not
to be missed. It is both relaxing and fascinating because of the way
nature's beauty mixes with the attractive and sometimes curious
buildings that its shores; you will see many old wooden houses and palaces
standing alongside modern villas. The route follows that taken by Jason in his quest
for the Golden Fleece, and is the site where Zeus's lover Io (whom he
had turned into a cow in his regret at deceiving his wife, Hera) was
driven into the strait by a horsefly sent by the jealous spouse. Bosphorus
means the place where the cow crossed.
After visiting the sights of Istanbul, if you still
have time on your hands, you will love to escape to the Princes Islands,
as the rich and famous have done throughout history (even Trotsky came
here after escaping from a Russian jail). The islands are a little
archipelago just off the Asian coast of the Sea of Marmara that are
dotted with monasteries, churches and synagogues. Here, it seems that
time has stopped because no cars are allowed! Don't worry, you don't
have to go everywhere on foot; you will be shown the sights during a
relaxing ride in a phaeton (horse-drawn carriage). Don't forget to look
back at the stunning view of Istanbul in the distance.
Adnan is an active member of KARED (Kapadokya Tourist Guiding Association),
TUREB (Federation of Turkish Tourist Guide Associations), and WFTGA (World
Federation of Tourist Guide Associations).
Adnan's guiding services are brought to you by Honeycomb Tours, Urgup, a TURSAB
member (Association of Turkish Travel Agencies-License Number 5361). This is a
website of
This website is designed by Colleen Ridgeway and Adnan Tanguler. All rights reserved.
Web Design by Colleen Ridgeway. All rights reserved.
This is a copyrighted website.
Version 3.1
Haghia Sophia, or Church of the Divine Wisdom,
with its 100 foot wide dome, was consecrated on December 26th, 537,
after taking only 5 years, 11 months and 10 days to construct. It was a
feat of engineering that would not be matched for a thousand years. It
used to contain the emperor's throne on the spot that was considered to
be the centre of the world. The church only just survived being
ransacked by the Fourth Crusade, whose soldiers broke up and removed the
altar and carried off the gold and silver. In 1453, Mehmet the Conqueror
stopped his own soldiers from looting it and turned it into a mosque.
The walls were whitewashed, and the mosaics were only rediscovered
during renovations in the 1930's, when Ataturk immediately converted it into a
museum for posterity.
For Byzantine mosaics, this church cannot be beaten.
Chora, in the sense of the dedication of the church, refers to Christ
and the Mother of God, but literally means dwelling place or
land of the living. It was originally built in the 12th century, but
rebuilt between 1315 and 1321, and the frescos and mosaics date from
this time. Among them, a series depicts the childhood of Mary, important
in the Eastern church where it originates from the popular second
century apocryphal gospel of Saint James.
The Hippodrome was the Byzantine racecourse and
centre of civilian life (in Latin, hippo means horse and
dromos means to run). Between races, spectators would
watch dancing bears, jugglers and tight-rope walkers. Executions and
public punishments also took place here. Today, three monuments remain:
the obelisk of Theodosius I, brought from Thebes, stands on a marble
base that shows the emperor and his family in the imperial box; the
Serpent Column, which once stood outside the temple of Apollo in Delphi,
commemorates the Greek victory over the Persians; and the stone obelisk,
the Column of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, erected in 940 CE, that was once
encased in bronze guilt but stripped by the crusaders.
The Basilica cistern is the largest of the forty
known in the city. It stored drinking water used in dry summers, and had
outgoing pipes which watered the gardens of the imperial palace. It is
140m x 70m, can hold 80,000 cubic meters of water, and has 336 columns,
many of which were pilfered from other ancient buildings, hence the
Corinthian capitals and two Medusa heads. After the Ottoman conquest,
the cistern fell into disuse, but was "rediscovered" by a Frenchman in
1545 who became curious about fresh fish being sold in nearby streets.
It seems the locals caught them here, and it provided the water for
their many wells, too. The scene with James Bond crossing a cistern by
boat in the movie From Russia with Love was filmed here.
Galata Tower, erected in 1348 by the Genoese to
protect their colony, although not strictly Byzantine connects
intimately with the decline of the Empire. The Genoese were traders who
competed with the Venetians. Michael Palaeologus recruited their support
to drive out the Crusaders, and in return he gave them the whole
district of Galata, granting them the status of a semi-independent
colony. When it came to the final showdown against Mehmet the Conqueror,
however, the Genoese maintained neutrality and they were once again
rewarded, being allowed to retain their businesses and churches.
On June 3rd 1912, when the destruction left by a
terrible fire was cleared, the lost remains of the Byzantine Great
Palace were revealed. They included the largest and most magnificent
6th century mosaics ever discovered anywhere. The remains were from the
floor of an open courtyard surrounded by a portico. Forty thousand small
stones were used in every square meter, which means that a total of 80
million were used in all. Today, only a small fraction of the original
survives, but these mosaics show amazing scenes such as gazelles drinking water,
bears feeding their young, shepherds milking their goats , a small boy
playing with his dog, and Byzantine soldiers hunting tigers.
The Aqueduct of Valens was part of the Emperor's 4th
century program of improving the water supply to the city by bringing
water from reservoirs in the Belgrade Forest to cisterns in the city
centre. More than six of its original 10 kilometers are still standing,
mainly because it was well maintained and used right up to the end of
the 19th century.
Topkapi Palace, built by Mehmet the Conquerer between
1459 and 1465, was the nerve-centre of the
Ottoman Empire for 400 years until the construction of Dolmabache Palace. Like the Alhambra in Granada, it consists of various buildings
arranged around a series of courtyards. At one time over 50,000
people worked here.
hair, tooth,
mantle and standard of the Prophet Mohammed as well as swords of the
first four caliphs, all brought here in 1517 by Selim the Grim.
Dolmabahce Palace, built by Sultan Abdul Mecdit in
1856, stands romantically on the shores of the Bosphorus. This is the
exact spot from where Mehmet the Conqueror launched his attack on
Constantinople. The harbor that was once here is now filled up, hence the name: Dolmabahce means filled garden.
Beylerbeyi Palace, the summer residence of the
sultans on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, was completed in 1865 by
Sultan Abdul Aziz. The imperial road to the white marble palace passes
through a 130-meter long tunnel that was constructed during the time of
Mahmut II, earlier in the century. The sultan's European visitors loved
the palace, and Empress Eugenie had its windows copied in the Tuileries
in Paris.
The most famous symbol of Istanbul, the Blue Mosque,
which was completed in 1617, gets its popular name from the main color
of the 20,000 or so Iznik tiles decorating its interior. Its real
name, however, is Sultanahmet Mosque, after its sponsor whose tomb is next door.
This mosque is unusual because of its six minarets. In Ottoman times,
only the sultan and his immediate family could build mosques with
multiple minarets, but no one had dared to put six before, as this
was considered a sacrilegious rival to the 6-minareted mosque in Mecca.
So, why 6 minarets? One story claims that the slightly deaf architect
misheard the Sultan: golden minarets (altin minare) was understood as
six minarets (alti minare). What a sweet mistake!
This great mosque, commissioned in 1550 by Suleyman
the Magnificent, was built in 7 years by Turkey's best-loved and
greatest ever architect, Sinan, who said, "I have built thee, oh
Emperor, a mosque that will remain on the face of the Earth until the
final judgment day." Architect Sinan's tomb is in the courtyard outside,
and not far away in a walled garden lie the Sultan Suleyman and his
wife, Roxelana.
Rustem Pahsa Mosque, built in 1561, is one of
Istanbul's most attractive smaller mosques. Inside, the highest quality
tiles from the finest period of Iznik's production take you a world away
from the bustling streets outside. Who was the architect? Sinan, of
course!
Rumeli Hisar, or the Strait Cutter, was built
by the daring young sultan Mehmet the Conqueror as part of his plan to
attack Constantinople. In it he stationed a new type of cannon that had
previously been offered by its inventor to the Byzantine Emperor, who could
not afford it. With this new weapon, Mehmet promptly sank a Venetian ship, and went
on to conquer the city. After the conquest, Rumeli Hisar was turned into
a prison before falling into disuse. In 1953, the walls were restored
and the space inside beautifully landscaped.
Istanbul's Archaeology Museum has one of the richest
collections of classical artifacts in the world, including the
famous sarcophagus with friezes depicting Alexander the Great. There are also
many earlier items of note, including the world's first written peace
treaty signed after the Battle of Kadesh by the Hittites and the
Egyptian Pharaoh
Ramses II, and many of the other Hittite cuneiform clay
tablets found at Hattusha that are on the Memory of the World List. (A copy of this peace treaty has been placed above the entrance to
the UN building in New York.) There is also a beautiful tiled corridor
with animal reliefs dating from the reign of the Babylonian ruler
Nebuchadnezzar (604-562 BCE).
The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts holds over
40,000 items from Mamluk, Seljuk and Ottoman periods (8th to 19th
centuries) and gives a fascinating insight into the cultural and
religious history of Turkey. In the ethnographic section is a black
goat-ha
This private museum, located in a late 19th century
Ottoman timber house, combines two important collections. Sadberk Hanim,
the wife of the Turkish industrialist Vehbi Koc, bequeathed that her
private collection of Ottoman embroideries and costumes should be made
into a museum. Later, the museum purchased the collection of Huseyin
Kocabas, containing artifacts from 6,000 years ago until the end of the
19th century. These collections are displayed in two sections:
Antiquities, and Islamic and Ottoman.
The Grand Bazaar is the largest covered bazaar in the
world, and is laid out in the traditional way so that shops selling
the same type of goods are grouped together in one place. Rivalry between such close
neighbors is controlled by strict
laws laid down by trade guilds which state that each shop can support
just one owner and his apprentice; in this way, small businesses are
maintained and competition is reduced.
The Spice Bazaar, also known as the Egyptian Bazaar,
was constructed in the 1660's as part of the New Mosque complex, and the
rents from the traders went towards the upkeep of the mosque and its
school, bath and public fountains. This bazaar gets its name from the
fact that it sells spices, which were subject to customs duties from
Cairo. Saffron and royal jelly as well as dried fruit and nuts are on
sale, but you'll no longer be able to buy gunpowder to cure you
hemorrhoids; this was banned after several careless shopkeepers
accidentally destroyed their own premises!
Maiden's Tower is named after the young princess who
was kept here by her over-protective father who believed a soothsayer's
prophesy that she would die from a snake bite. He felt that both the water
and the height of the tower would form an impenetrable barrier and protect
his daughter. Unfortunately, a servant inadvertently transported a snake
over to the island in a basket of fruit. It seems that fate was
inescapable! More recently, the place has been used as a quarantine
tower, a lighthouse, a customs point, and a toll centre. One of the
scenes from the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies was shot
here.
A trip up the Bosphorus towards the Black Sea, the
stretch of water that links Europe to Asia, is a magical experience not
to be missed. It is both relaxing and fascinating because of the way
nature's beauty mixes with the attractive and sometimes curious
buildings that its shores; you will see many old wooden houses and palaces
standing alongside modern villas. The route follows that taken by Jason in his quest
for the Golden Fleece, and is the site where Zeus's lover Io (whom he
had turned into a cow in his regret at deceiving his wife, Hera) was
driven into the strait by a horsefly sent by the jealous spouse. Bosphorus
means the place where the cow crossed.
After visiting the sights of Istanbul, if you still
have time on your hands, you will love to escape to the Princes Islands,
as the rich and famous have done throughout history (even Trotsky came
here after escaping from a Russian jail). The islands are a little
archipelago just off the Asian coast of the Sea of Marmara that are
dotted with monasteries, churches and synagogues. Here, it seems that
time has stopped because no cars are allowed! Don't worry, you don't
have to go everywhere on foot; you will be shown the sights during a
relaxing ride in a phaeton (horse-drawn carriage). Don't forget to look
back at the stunning view of Istanbul in the distance.
Adnan is an active member of KARED (Kapadokya Tourist Guiding Association),
TUREB (Federation of Turkish Tourist Guide Associations), and WFTGA (World
Federation of Tourist Guide Associations).
Adnan's guiding services are brought to you by Honeycomb Tours, Urgup, a TURSAB
member (Association of Turkish Travel Agencies-License Number 5361). This is a
website of