Palaces and Sparkley Things

Our second full day and Istanbul and we are feeling like the jet lag is behind us. Woke up at 5:30 am this morning, which is pretty much our usual wake up time at home. One of the things we have discovered is that we love is waking up and heading out on a walk to see some of the sites before the hordes of tourists have invaded. There is something special about wondering around a city like Paris or Istanbul just as the sun is rising with hardly a soul on the streets.

Jess and I have traveled a fair bit. Travel has been our passion in our almost 4 years together (Prague,Paris, London, Paris (again), London (again), Tallin, St. Petersberg, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, Oslo, New York, Vegas, Rome, Florence, Venice, Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terre) but we hardly have a picture of us together in any of these places. Today we made a pact to change that and headed out at 6am this morning with our tripod and camera in hand to get the first of what we hope will be a series of portraits in front of the "signature site" in the cities we visit. What do you think?After breakfast, we went for a glamor breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We have been loving our breakfasts here, amazing food, fresh coffee, English newspapers, and planning our day while seated in the beautiful courtyard gardens. The staff here orchestrate everything with such precision and grace. I love observing impeccable customer service and this place has it nailed down. You can not find fault in a single staff member. I don't know how the Four Seasons does it but they have staff that just never missed a beat. On our tour yesterday Jess mentioned to our guide (not a Four Seasons employee) in passing that the beer on the roof top patio of the hotel was rather expensive and she reminded him "you are not buying the beer you are buying the Four Seasons brand" and it is so true.After breakfast we toured Topkapi Palace, home of the Sultan and his Harem. This time no private guide, just our Rick Steves travel books. I gotta hand it to Rick, his books are bare bones but they have all the info on when to arrive, how to beat the crowds and lineups. We arrived at 9 a.m. and had the place to ourselves (almost). As we were leaving two hours later, we had to fight our way through the throngs of people. The highlight of the palace was seeing the "Spoonmakers Diamond" which is a 86-carat diamond (one of the worlds biggest). This sucker was huge and surrounded by 49 other diamonds, so pretty, I am a sucker for sparkley things (hint, hint Jess) . Unfortunately we were not allowed to photograph the diamond. Here are a few photos from the palace:That is Europe on the left and Asia on the right.

Right now we are reposing in the room, enjoying the air con (it is so HOT!!). Next on the agenda was supposed to be a trip to the Turkish Bath but "I'M F'ING SCARED!!!"(they describe the massage as the pummeling massage... and apparently, you only wear a little towel), I have told Jess I will do it but I am hoping we can maybe go shopping at the Grand Bazaar instead. We'll see.

Crisis Averted!

A Four Hour Tour... A Four Hour Tour...

You know... like Gilligan's Island... or not...

This morning we were met at our hotel by a private tour guide. Over the years, we've learned (the hard way) that spending a little bit extra to have a private guide is well worth the expense. The alternative is being herded around with the other cattle and inevitably, you are always stuck with that special someone that looks like this, wearing her bedazzled Crocs, that just happened to have finished a correspondence course on Islamic studies and is hell-bent on playing 'stump the tour guide.'
Our first stop was the Blue Mosque (above). It was amazing to be able to walk through with commentary from someone who was so well versed in the history of the place. The mosque is famous for having 6 minorets. Traditionally, these spires were climbed the requisite 5 times (daily) by men to call people for prayer. Now, they've hooked up loudspeakers to the top of them and let me tell you... there is no chance in hell (Allah, forgive me) that you can't know it's time for prayer. The women have no obligation to go and the men, though encouraged to go 5 times per day are only required to go on Fridays. They have to wash their feet to 'transform' themselves before entering the mosque:
We were also required to take off our shoes before entering and those with bare shoulders were required to cover them with a scarf. Here is a picture of people ripping off plastic bags to carry their shoes through the mosque:
Here's a couple of pictures from the inside. I can't say they're fantastic by any means. We're still trying to figure out which camera to use and when. Even then, I'm not sure we're going to be any good until we take a class and learn how to use them properly:
The next place we headed to was Hagia Sophia which is a museum and former mosque (if you're like us, this is the point where you start tuning out as far as the 'history' part of it goes). Yes, everything is spectacular, and yes, you are on the other side of the world... but the names of the rulers and the Byzantine empires this and Ottoman empires that... you really don't know what the hell is going on but it looks pretty so you just take pictures. How about you read all the Wikipedia sites if you're interested, and I'll just show you the pictures.
(Of course, you can never escape the never ending scaffolding in Europe)
Once we were finished with the churchy bits, we headed underground to the Yerebatan Sarnici (Basilica Cistern). The name translates to the 'Sinking Palace' and for good reason. The Cistern was created with stolen Roman pillars and spans 9,800 square metres. Basically, it was a reserve to hold the city's drinking water.
It was really nice escaping the heat. Take a look at the temperature:
Apart from that, the morning/early afternoon consisted of seeing cool things like this:
...and trying to convince Ryan that we were not going to be able to find cheeseburgers, and that he'd have to branch out when it came to ordering lunch. We took a risk, on the recommendation of the concierge. For those of you that know Ryan, tell me if you think he was a happy boy...
Big, fat NO on that one. More tomorrow.

Dikkat: Turkish for 'Queen'

If We Had Dressed Ourselves When We Were 5...

Good Morning

BING! Wide awake at 3:45 a.m., feeling completed rested and ready to take on the day. Too bad the rest of Turkey was still sleeping. We read and watched TV for awhile until the sun came up and we felt it was acceptable to go for a walk around the neighbourhood.

Were staying at the Four Seasons Sultanahmet which is actually an old prison that they have refurbished into a hotel. I would have no problem serving consecutive life sentences in this place. It's amazing.
The hotel is in the old part of Istanbul and right around the corner, is the Sultanahmet Camii (Blue Mosque). It is pretty spectacular to be here actually looking at it, and it was the perfect time to be there (read: no other tourists were there yet). Well, that's not entirely accurate. There was a group of Asian tourists there (read: who better to take a picture of both of us together).
After walking around for about 45 minutes, we went back to the hotel to get some breakfast. What an amazing way to start the day:
Here's a shot of my traditional Turkish breakfast. Everything was delicious... the only I didn't really like was the fact that my sausage tasted exactly like what my cab driver smelled like on the way to the airport. Good thing we had strong coffee to go along with it.
Naturally, Ryan had his usual though things are always a little bit different in foreign countries... his "sausages" were bright pink hot dogs. Not even the 5 mini bottles of ketchup he used (yes, 5... he even dipped his toast in it this morning. Barf.) could get him to eat them. But really, everything tastes better when you're eating it here:
That's all for now. We're off to meet our tour guide. He's taking us all over the city to see the sites.

No Youtube in Turkey...What the $#%!!

Okay....its 4 am here and we are wide awake, the usual first days sleeping pattern with the 10 hour time change from home. Oh well, the first call to prayer of the day is at 5:30 am so maybe we will go for a walk around that time.

So our new thing for the blog this time around was going to be Youtube videos of us being goofy. WELL the country of Turkey has banned all access to youtube!!!! Apparently the Turks are quite fond of this guy and someone made an unflattering video about him. We are going on a 4 hour walking tour of the old town this morning and I am sure we will find out more about him.

We can post no youtube videos until we get to Hungary in a week and worse than that have no access to the videos on PerezHilton (Tracy, can you feel my pain!!)

We had planned to post a video of the hotel room that Jess did yesterday and let me tell you it was HILARIOUS!!! Take my word, you don't know what your missing. So until Hungary it's going to have to be the old school blog with still photos. We will post something later today once we have explored as little and, more importantly, have had a few glasses of wine (we think we are REALLY witty when we are drunk). Evidence "A" : This post was written cold stone sober (it is 4:30 am after all) mmmmm....I wonder if there will be champagne at breakfast???

So until then here are a few photos taken from the room top of our hotel.

The hotel is a converted prison. Very small, only 65 rooms.
Jess on rooftop with something very important and famous behind. I am sure our tour will give us all the details.

Oh ya, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!