To the Black Sea - Istanbul Page

We woke up, more or less at the gates of the Bosphorus & by time I was on the deck, we had passed under the first Bosphorus Bridge one comes to from the North.

A coach took us up to the Old City area, which has some obelisks, one taken from Egypt like our Cleopatra’s Needle.

Then, we had to take out shoes off to go into the beautiful Blue Mosque, which has one dome supported by half domes, leaving a large area without pillars.

We went on into the Topkapi Palace, which has three courtyards, the first being public space which used to be used for public announcements in Ottoman days.

The second is ticket only & has the kitchens (now filled with imported porcelain etc), the Council Chamber, which is quite small, so there could not have been many councillors & much open space.

The third courtyard is small, with some buildings who’s purpose we were not told but there were good views over the Golden Horn & Bosphorus. There was a building used for circumcisions & below that, a not-very-good restaurant, where we had lunch.

After going in the second courtyard museum buildings, we went to Aghia Sophia, which has the builders in. Outside, the added buttresses & extensions means it is rather messy & inside, it is very large but nowhere near as beautiful as the Blue Mosque. It is now a museum.

With another couple, we took a taxi back to the ship. After cleaning up, we went out to wait for Chris Stephenson, who arrived on time at 18:30. We walked to the ferry station & took a ferry to Asia. Then, we walked through what looked like a market area to a restaurant which specialises in East Turkish food. This was not unlike Gallipoli’s food (a restaurant in Islington, so tactfully named) & was very good. We talked about lots of things. In 1991, he said he had made money (as we had) free-lancing & was getting bored when some Turkish friends who were going ‘home’ for a few weeks, asked him to go with them & he didn’t go back, except on odd occasions. He & Filiz were in the same circles for some time before they got their act together, a bit like me & Avis. He would like to retire soon (he is 67). He was not thinking of returning to Blighty at all, which is not surprising after a quarter-century, a wife & daughter but he said it takes his daughter 1 3/4 hours to get to school at the French School. He revealed his softer side by disliking the new ferries & saying ships should look like ships. The new ferries look like radiograms. We all much enjoyed the reunion. Chris took us another way back to the ferry & squeaked us in on his season ticket. The ferry went to Karakoy so we took another taxi to Sarayburnu Iskele, which Chris had written down for us. The first taxi refused to take us. A later one said he would & remonstrated with the other taxi. The fare was about TL7.60 & I gave him 10. Avis said what nice man Chris is.