2011 Med Cruise Day 6 – Istanbul
We boarded our bus for the day around 8:30 a.m. Our guide for the day was Celal (pronounced Jeh-LAL). His English was excellent. As we once again plunged into the hideous city traffic, he told us about the history of Istanbul. He handed out headsets, so he could speak at a normal tone of voice, and we would be able to still hear him through the ear buds.
Our first stop was supposed to be the Blue Mosque – called that by foreigners (us) for all the blue tiles that line the walls. Once there, we saw that all the excursions from all 4 cruise ships in harbor we all in line in front of us to go in. While we were waiting, I once again go to experience a Turkish bathroom. My goal was to minimize the number of times I’d have to do this during the course of the day.
Since I still had my headset on, I could hear Celal say that he was going to reorganize our itinerary for the day, because the lines were ridiculously long and it would be impossibly crowded inside the mosque. Hearing this, I hurried myself up and out of the bathroom to find the group before he started walking away. The whole day it didn’t seem like he was walking all that quickly, but he always managed to get way ahead of me.
All the places we were to visit that day were all within walking distance from each other, except for the Grand Bazaar. We piled back on the bus to take us there. Before we were given free time in the Bazaar, we had to sit through a carpet demonstration. This time we were determined not to buy a carpet like we did last year in Tunisia. The sales guy was from Scotland. He and his crew rolled out carpet after carpet. However, none of them was as nice as the one we bought last year. I noticed that when he went on and on about how wonderful his carpets were in comparison to carpets from Iran or other places in Europe, he didn’t mention the Berber carpets from Tunisia.
After 15 minutes or so, we were able to escape – but it wasn’t easy, since the elevator down stopped on every floor, and each floor had different merchandise.
Once inside the Grand Bazaar, we were determined not to get lost this time. We made note of every turn we made and landmarks to steer us back to Gate 1. That early in the morning, the bazaar was not crowded. We wandered around for a bit, not really seeing anything that was grabbing our interest. We did like the ceramic tiles, but last year we bought a big ceramic tile thing that was awkward to carry and bring back home. We finally hit on the idea of getting a single tile, instead of 4 or 6 or 8 that fitted together into a pattern. That made it easier to decide on something. We haggled with a vendor for a tile with a peacock design, plus a ceramic elephant.
We were proud of ourselves for not getting lost on the way back to the bus. However, the bus moved only a few feet down the street when it got stuck – there was a low hanging tree on the left, and a car double parked on the right, making it impossible for the bus to pass. So Celal recruited several men from the bus and pushed the car out of the way! Good thing, too – there was a terrible back up behind us.
Finally free, we drove back to the vicinity where we started earlier that morning, but we did not go back to the mosque. We went to the Topkapi Palace, where the sultans of the Ottoman Empire lived for hundreds of years. It was enormous and stunningly beautiful – we walked through the harem quarters, including the Queen Mother’s apartments. After walking for 90 minutes, we had 45 minutes of free time. There was the opportunity to stand on a very long line to see the “crown jewels”, but we opted for going on the bathroom hunt instead.
This time, the bathroom was located near the restaurant, which of course was located down a very long flight of stairs. The bathroom itself, of course, was down more stairs, up more stairs, around the corner and yes, up more stairs. The line for the ladies’ room was very long. The bathroom attendant started pulling women in the men’s room when there were no men in there. So when she pulled me into the men’s room, I kinda assumed that she would keep men out until all the women were out. The good news? It was a normal flush toilet. The bad news? There were two men at the urinals when I came out of the stall! I was so startled, that I opted not to wash my hands before dashing out of there. I even forgot to tip the attendant, which I had fully intended to do. After retracing my steps (down, up , down, up) I used one of the hand wipes I had cleverly thought to bring along.
Back at the meeting spot, we were missing two people. They resurfaced eventually - they had gone in to see the crown jewels.
It was now almost 2:00 and we hadn’t had lunch yet - but that’s where we were headed. It was a 10 minute walk from where we were. There was a great breeze at the restaurant. We shared our table with a family from London.
After lunch, we walked back to the Blue Mosque. Now all the crowds were gone, and it was very easy to go in. We had to take off our shoes and hold them in a bag. The mosque is immense, with beautiful tiling all over the walls. We basically stood in the middle of this huge room and looked around. We were there no more than 30 minutes. To do this in the morning would have taken 90 minutes, and we would have been crammed in like sardines.
Our last stop was the Hagia Sofia – long ago it was a huge church, then a mosque, but a museum since 1924, when Turkey became a republic. Another immense open space, it was interesting to see the combination of Christian and Muslim decorations in the same area.
By the time we were all back on the bus (with our shoes on), it was already 4:00, and all-aboard time was 4:30, with the ship leaving port at 5:00. Fortunately, since we were on an excursion booked through Holland America, we knew that they would hold the ship, if need be. We were back on board ship shortly after 4:30.
Andy went out on deck to watch as we pulled away from the dock.
It was formal night, so we got all dressed up. We had dinner with a couple from Wales on their first cruise and Elisa, a woman we had dinner with a few nights ago. We’ve had a couple of other repeats on this cruise, which has not happened before.
Wednesday’s show was this couple – not sure exactly what it was they were supposed to do (magic? Dance? Mime?), but all of it was awful. This is the only really disappointment with Holland America – they don’t seem to be able to provide really entertaining shows.
Afterwards, we went to listen to Rachel and the HALcats. “HALcats” is the name of the band on board ship – HAL is “Holland America Lines”; all the bands on HAL ships are called the “HALcats”. The lead singer, Rachel, has an amazing voice. A 180 degree improvement over the show we had suffered through.
Istanbul was great. Tomorrow – Mykonos!
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