Free Walking Tour of Istanbul's Old City

View of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn from the Suleymaniye Mosque

And that was the place where the free walking tour of Istanbul's Old City came to an end, on the grounds of a huge mosque on a hilltop with a view overlooking the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, with the "New City" neighborhood of European Istanbul to one side and Asia to the other. Well, how did I get here?

The meeting point for the free walking tour was a short walk from my hotel.

Which makes sense since the hotel is conveniently located between of the major tourist attractions in Istanbul:  Hagia Sofia (above) and the Blue Mosque (below).

That's the reason I picked this hotel. Location, location, location, as the folks in real estate would say.

So after loading up on cash at the ATM, so I had tipping money for the end of tour, it was off to start the tour.

(Please note: when I said "loading up on cash," I was not joking. It's like the Weimar Republic here when it comes to paper money. The largest denomination bill is the 200 lira note. That sounds respectable. In the U.S., we're not printing any Grover Clevelands ($1,000 bill) or William McKinleys ($500) anymore. But 200 Turkish Lira is worth a little more than $4.00. Which means the largest denomination bill in circulation here is a four-dollar bill. Which means you have to got to have an extremely thick wad of paper to have any purchasing power in a place that is not fully committed to credit cards and electronic payment. So if you're carrying enough cash in your front pocket for a day's worth of consumption, people will think you're happy to see them.)

First stop on the tour: the German Fountain.

This is next to the Blue Mosque. It was a "thank you" gift from Germany to the Sick Man of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, for being Germany's wing-man during the First World War.

This area is the old Roman Hippodrome:

They don't run horses through here anymore. The tourist horde would frighten them. And at the far end of the old Hippodrome is:

The Egyptian obelisk, a.k.a., the Obelisk of Theodosius, which I believe no one calls it other than a few pedantic travel blog writers.

It is impressive, especially when you consider that this is only the top 60 percent of the original Egyptian obelisk. The original obelisk was carved from a single piece of granite and was so enormous than when it was shipped out of Egypt to its new home, the entire obelisk could not be shipped. No ship was big enough to transport the whole thing. So they improvised.

The base is very Roman:

While the writing on the side is Egyptian. Quick, break out your Rosetta Stone and do a quick translation from the Google translator of its day.

Next is the Serpent Column, Yılanlı Sütun, which used to have the head of a serpent.

Now it is merely serpentine. Constantinople (not Istanbul) was once the center of the civilized world so the treasures of the ancient were brought here and put on display, a function later usurped by places such as the Louvre in Paris or the British Museum in London. Centers of global power always seem to collect the treasures of the world.

Obelisk and minaret visible in one photo:

We then walked to the Blue Mosque. "To," not "in," because in the morning hours, the line to get into the Blue Mosque is huge.

The colloquially called "Blue Mosque" is actually called Sultanahmet Camii, or the Sultanahmet Mosque. Sultanahmet was an Ottoman Emperor from the 1600's who built a lot of this part of town. The blue tiles inside give this mosque its more familiar name, as the interior is more blue than the exterior.

The exterior is the popular photo for tourists. And here is one of said tourists getting a souvenir photo taken with the Blue Mosque in the background:

With the Blue Mosque being off-limits due to extraordinarily long queuing, we instead entered a much smaller mosque from the same era on the same grounds.

Keep in mind that, in Islam, the word "mosque" is used like we Christians use the word "church." Both words generally mean a spot where the faithful gather for worship but, practically speaking, nearly always refers to a building, rather than a site, where said gathering occurs.

The interior of this mosque was small and ornate:

Those are not coffins or graves. Those are cenotaphs, which are monuments to those buried elsewhere. The smaller cenotaphs are for children.

Time to get back onto the tour. There are many more mosques to see,

And columns:

This is, I believe, the Column of Constantine. Named for the man for whom Constantinople (not Istanbul) is named. So, contrary to the popular song, apparently you can go back to Constantinople. (BTW, that is the tour guide for my free walking tour on the bottom left. He had a name at the time.)

Next mosque up: the Nuruosmaniye Mosque

Cats aplenty throughout Istanbul. The reason? The prophet Mohammed was a cat lover. So in Moslem cities, stray cats are everywhere and they appear to be well taken care of.  Stray dogs?  You don't see them.

This mosque is new construction, relatively speaking. It dates from the mid 1700's, rather than the 1600's.

The chandelier hand low because it is used to be oil-lamp lighting, not electricity. 

It's nice, but give me the 1600's over the 1700's when it comes to Istanbul interior design.

Next up: the nightmare part of the tour: the Grand Bazaar.

Shall we enter?

This surprised me. I was expecting more of a "bazaar" atmosphere with stalls thrown up all over the place, with cloth roofs, and amazing and sometimes frightening smells. Instead, it was a shopping mall atmosphere. A huge crowded shopping mall, with storefronts. Only imagine that this is a shopping mall with an overwhelming number of Zales and Kay Jewelers and carpet salesman. I was expecting sensory overload of the scent of spices fresh off the Silk Road. Instead, I got Black Friday at the Galleria.

The tour ended at a mosque on a hill.

The Suleymaniye Mosque, which is a tourist destination primarily for the view:

Again, you can see the Bosphorus, the narrow strait that separates European Thrace from Asian Anatolia, separating what we once thought were two continents but we now know as a single giant landmass that we still call two continents out of habit. You also can see the Golden Horn, the narrow passage of water on the European side of Istanbul separating the Old City to the south and the New City to the north.

I planned to take a short rest and head out to a museum later in the day. Didn't happen. The jet lag and time zone shift and the lack of sleep caught up with me so when I went back to the hotel, I fell asleep. It's now 10:00 p.m. as I post this and, for the time time, I feel wide awake. That does not bode well for getting a good night of quality sleep. At least my tourist neighborhood goes silent after 9:00 p.m.

Split Day Two: The Palace

Is that a Roman arch? Why yes. Yes, it is.

The big thing to see and do in Split is tour Diocletian's Palace. Our group, now a fivesome as we were joined by a married couple friends of the Sister, hired a tour guide and toured, guided, the Palace.

Diocletian was Roman emperor from 284 AD until 305 AD. He was not a Roman; he was an Illyrian, the indigenous people of the Balkans during Roman times (and whose presence in Dalmatia pre-dated the Slavs). Diocletian is notable for splitting the Roman Empire into Western and Eastern halves. (That is NOT why the name of this city is Split, incidentally.) He is also noted for abdicating the Roman throne, which is highly unusual as Roman emperor's reign typically ended with death (often induced).

The narrow streets of the Palace section of Split

Diocletian's Palace is not some castle set off by itself, impenetrable unless the proper admission fee is paid. It is a working, living, breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping and shopping hive of activity that dominates Old Town Split.

And some streets are narrower than others

Within the palace walls are restaurants, bars, shops, hotels, apartments, a cathedral and the core of the old palace built in the late 200's A.D. There's a lot to see, so we got us a guide to show it all to us.

Lucy the tour guide

Meet Lucy. Our tour guide.

Lucy teaching us a lesson on Diocletian and his palace

So let's tour the palace.

The courtyard area in front of what is now a cathedral  

Roman arches

The buildings were made of the local limestone. No mortar was used. The Roman buildings are doing quite well 1800-ish years later, despite the fact that this is earthquake country.

The scaffolding is to stop one building from leaning into the other

Our tour group

Behind the cathedral

Faux Roman guards from the Diocletian Era. They're actually modern day Croats in costume.

The main rooms of the palace have been converted into ... guess. Shockingly, given that this is a very Catholic country, it was transmogrified into a cathedral. This is the Bell Tower. It's a new addition. It dates only to 1100 A.D.

Cathedral bell tower

You can walk up to the top of the Bell Tower for a 15 kuna ticket, which is about 90 cents. A lot of the stairwell is exterior. And the parts that are not are very tight and low (designed better for 12th Century bodies than a 21st Century Spretnak). So the question would be were I to walk it: which would get me first: the altophobia or the claustrophobia? I will never know.

Yes, narrow streets in the palace complex

Bell Tower and Diocletian's Mausoleum

Inside the Mausoleum.

By the way, Diocletian is gone. And not just in the obvious way. His sarcophagus was looted and his body taken out, likely thrown into the Adriatic as a big "thank you" -- well, some two-word phrase ending in "you" -- for being such a murderous thug to the Christians of Rome. Lucy said about half of the Christian martyrs got their martrydom on order of Diocletian. So, yeah, no "rest in peace" for you. 

Viewing the Bell Tower through the hole in the top of Diocletian's Dining Room
(which, incidentally, would make a GREAT name for a bar-restaurant within the Palace complex)

Living space within the Palace complex (from the modern era, not Diocletian's)

Bell Tower and Mausoleum plus another cool Roman ruin-building in the foreground

The narrowest street in the Palace complex
(NOTE: I am quite nervous about the prospect of getting stuck between the narrow walls)

Not only is the Palace complex full of history, it is full of faux history:

This photograph is legally not allowed to exist

For example, here's a photo I took before being told I couldn't photograph this. What is this? It's part of the palace that is being used in the filming of the TV series "Game of Thrones." Which I've never seen. So I don't know, for example, why the plot includes draping black fabric on ancient stone.

The southern wall was along the sea. Literally. It was right up against the Adriatic. See.

See the sea, And a big ol' date palm.

The rusted iron bars are not Roman. They're from the modern era. If they were Roman they would not have rusted.

There is a reason for that last comment. As told to us by Lucy:

Here's Lucy

The Romans invented cement. And they invented a high grade of cement that cannot be replicated in modern times. We lost the secret formula. Damn Visigoths.

The tour ended just in time to view the noon-hour ceremonial "changing of the guard." Basically, its shift change for the young men who dress up in faux Roman costumes to be the faux palace guard. But us tourists lap it up like ice water on a 115-degree Las Vegas afternoon.

Packed in elbow to elbow

Tourists can't get enough of anything labelled "changing of the guard." A faux Diocletian then comes out.

Faux Diocletian surrounded by his faux guards (but at the real palace)

He then orders the beheading of a couple of faux Christians!

No. Actually, he just says some words in Latin and it's all over in a few minutes. Then the the tourists can put down those iPads that they're holding up in the air to video the faux-ness.

But you want to know what wasn't faux? Lunch!

Salmon (lox), herring and an artistic balsamic drizzle for an appetizer
(And, yes, I did eat the tomato)

Sea bass over a bed of vegetables for main course
(I did not photograph the tiramisu dessert, seeing as it was too delicious. Best. Tiramisu. EVER.)

And then after a big lunch washed down with copious amount of wines, I was all like this:

Taking a cat nap in Diocletian's Palace
(Yes. I went there.)