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.