turkey trip Istanbul I Istanbul II Istanbul III Istanbul IV Bursa Troy Pergamum Sardes - Pamukkale Aphrodisia Ephesus Priene Didyma MiletCapitels

We arrived in Istanbul in the early afternoon of May 22nd . We found our welcome manand were escorted to the car that was to take us to the hotel, a drive that would take "40 minutes". He said. He lied. After about an hour I nodded off - jet lag was getting to me. I woke up and we were still crawling inch by inch through traffic that didn't seem to advance at all. We saw the old city walls, we saw the Golden Horne, we were told that we had just passed Taksim Square and now we had been crawling for about two hours. another mere fifteen minutes and there really was a hotel at the end of that tunnel! I had bene in Istanbul before, but that was before the city had added about another 4 million people. We did not realize it yet, but that drive was what we would experience again and again throughout the three following days in Istanbul. Let me not badm outh the 405 or 101 or the so-called freeways in Seattle. They ain't nuthin' compared to Istanbul! In the evening we met our tour guide Ayşegül Vaizoglu who insisted we call her Ayşe and who turned out to be delightful as well as knowledgable and competent. We also met the rest of our group and were given an introduction into what the next twelve days would be like. I got my first inkling that this would really be a "Study Trip", no rest for the wicked! The next morning we were on the bus bright and early to get to our first destination:

After our visit to the treasury (and yes, the serious crowds had arrived by then!) we visited the Harem. as we walked past the School of the Janissaries, Ayşe gave us our first serious history lessonI don't know about Birgit, but I did not know that the Janissaries were not turks, but Christian boys forcibly recruited from the Balkans. They were first converted to Islam and taught turkic. Then they were either educated to become the elite administrative leadership of the ottoman empire or trained as fearsome warriors who terrorized the Middle East, the Balkans and parts of Europe until the 18th century. We continued on to the Harem - the actual "home" of the Sultan, wives, concubines, etc.; as well as the black and white Eunuchs. The wives/concubines just like the Janisaaries could not be turkish women since Islam does not permit enslaving members of the faith. Instead they were in essence booty captured in war or however. Just like the Janissaries they were well educated and treated reasonably well, depending on whether they became favored by the Sultan or his mother. Mama appeared to have been the "real power behind the throne" in many cases. The Sultan spent his evenings and nights in the harem, but during the day he was expected to leave the harem and conduct business in other parts of the palace. We were told that to this day this is the normal pattern in traditional tukish homes. Men leave in the morning, work and/or sit with their cronies in the tea houses.                                                                                                                                                                return to top

Below are a picture of the tower of justice in the second court yard and two views of the Blue Mosque - the middle picture is from inside the palace, the picture on the right is taken outside the palace on the square leading th the mosque.

Museum of Turkish-Islamic Art

Our day continued with a lovely boat trip on the Bosporous, the strait that not only divides Europe from Asia but also divides modern Istanbul.  The map below and the satellite picture on the right show how the Black Sea is connected through the narrow bosporous with the Sea of Marmara which, in turn is connected through the Dardanelles straits to the Aegeian Sea and thus to the Mediterranean Sea.