Bazaar and leave for Vienna.

Leaving for Vienna wasn’t scheduled till 14:30 so we had enough time to finally visit the Grand Bazaar. The three of us spent some time exploring many of the covered ways inside the bazaar itself, then around lunchtime we went outside where there were still more shops ringing the Bazaar itself. I found a hall which had a selection of hardware shops so I dropped in a bought a few minor tools, including a set of fine tweezers. A lot of the wood working tools seemed to be made in India.

We caught the plane to Vienna and by 21:30 that evening we had booked into Pension Neumarkt and took a walk around some of the now familiar streets.

Blue Mosque

The plan was to go to the Grand Bazaar, but when we got there we found it was shut on a Sunday. We walked around the quiet back streets and even got accosted by a shoe shine man, but only Uschi had shoes which would take a polish. We spent some time in the square where Constantines Column is and watched a man feed the pigeons with quite a large bag of wheat. We strolled back towards the Hippodrome Square and took a little stop at the German Fountain in Mehmet Akif Ersoy Park.

 

Just off the Hippodrome, we found the museum of Islamic art which was really a find. We stopped and had lunch in the museum cafe there as well. After three hours we left for the blue mosque. We couldn’t get in straight away as we had to wait for a non prayer time, but when we did get in we were able to walk around bare foot inside the cool mosque for the best part of an hour.

Ishtar Gate Again

I got up early, before breakfast and went out to do some early morning filming of the Blue Mosque. After breakfast the three of us went to the Hagia Sophia where we spent more than two hours wandering about, including taking turns to go up the high balconies while the other person waited with Christl on the ground floor.

 

After lunch of something like pita bread wraps with chips we went to the Archaeological museum. Amongst other things I saw more of the parts of the Ishtar Gate. Other parts of which I had seen in Berlin, Vienna and the Louvre.

Finally for the day we managed to get Christl in her wheel chair down into the cistern.

 

Topkapi

I didn't write much in my journal but sketched some items of interest. We visited the Topkapi Palace from about 10:00 till 17:50.

In the Topkapi museum I saw the staff of Moses, the sword of David, the turban of Joseph, the cooking pot of Abraham and 8 hairs of the beard of the prophet (in six separate reliquaries).
Walking back we stopped at a sweet food shop where we shared a main meal of aubergine and chicken with a cheese topping. There were three kofte with potato. Then Uschi got what we really came into the shop to get. A serve of nuts in nests, also a few slices of something like pistachio kataifi log (Burma Kadia?) with four versions of turkish delight.