Istanbul Pt.2: Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace

Inside the Blue Mosque
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Bright and early the next morning, we rolled out of bed and continued on part 2 of the Istanbul tour. We brought along an extra pair of socks to wear while we visited the Blue Mosque because although it’s a tourist site, it’s still a working mosque where people come to pray in their bare feet and the floor gets gross and sweaty. So we both brought black socks. While we were in line to get into BM, there was apparently a pickpocketer being chased down by the pickpocket-ed or so we were told when we heard all the yelling and running and saw some guy hop a fence. Inside the BM there were lots of amazing stained glass windows and blue ceramic tile mosaics that were very cool. It was weird to be able to take pictures inside the church while people were praying since you usually can’t take pictures in churches, period. There was even a section for women only to pray, though they could pray in the main area too which is good.

Doorway in the palace
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Between the BM & Hagia Sophia, there stood nothing but two tall obelisks, one of them being the 3500-year-old Egyptian Obelisk of Theodosius. Underneath used to be the Hippodrome and in ottoman times it was the spot for games and riots (of course they go together).

Ewww…who would want a box of some old man’s hair? Sick!

Topkapi Palace was the last stop in our tour. It was a private residence at one point and I think it is used as some sort of boys school now because we saw lots of pre-teen boys in uniforms being herded by some head matron type guy. There were lots of rooms including a library and some sort of sitting room but the things we were amused by most was the museum part where they had the jewels and other random objects like diamond flasks and beating sticks (aka maces). There was also some weird box that contained St. John’s hair. Ewww…who would want a box of some old man’s hair? Sick! We saw a huge diamond but since we were going to London to see the biggest one in the world, we didn’t care that much. We did have to follow some really LOUD Americans who took forever so we did the ‘Why are we yelling?? LOUD NOISES!” thing from Anchor Man a lot. The palace was right along the water so we got some nice scenic shots and enjoy the view before it was back to the ship and off to Mykonos!