Days 1 & 2: Home to Istanbul

It's been a busy few days in our household. Over the weekend we were in Manchester for the annual British Esperanto Conference then, after spending Sunday night at home, on Monday evening we were on our way down to Luton airport. I had booked a Premier Inn at Luton because a few months ago we had booked a cheap flight from Luton to Istanbul, with an early morning departure of 7am. A few weeks back, I had an email from Wizzair telling me that my flight time had changed and my flight would now be departing at 13.15 instead! It was quite the change and meant that spending Monday night in the Premier Inn was a bit unnecessary, but I'd already paid for it and couldn't get a refund so we decided to go anyway.

It turned out to be a very nice Premier Inn and we had a civilised start to Tuesday morning, having breakfast and then dropping the car at the nearby Airparks. We were at the airport in plenty of time and our flight ultimately took off with only about half an hour of delay. The flight time to Istanbul was about 4 hours, which I thought might be a challenging amount of time to spend on Wizzair, but the plane was actually perfectly comfortable and I had earphones to block out the noisier passengers. The only thing that wasn't very good was the selection of snacks, so lunch ended up being some Pringles and a KitKat.

We landed in Istanbul around 19.30 local time and it was immediately clear that this was an enormous airport. The plane drove for what felt like miles before it came to its final slot and we then walked for what felt like miles until we came to passport control. Passport control turned out to be relatively painless with no awkward questions and our bag was on the belt by the time we got to baggage reclaim, which was a relief after a slightly painful experience I'd had with Finnair losing my suitcase last time I checked one in. But the size of the airport meant it still took about an hour from us landing to getting outside.

We followed signs towards the airport metro station, getting a view of an illuminated mosque as we did so.

After multiple escalators we arrived at the ticket hall, where we were able to use a machine to purchase an Istanbul card; a reloadable ticket that seems to work like an Oyster card. Then we were on our first of two metros, taking us towards a station called Gayrettepe. We changed trains there onto another line which took us nearer to our hotel. The metro was lovely - very clean and modern - but changing lines took about 15 minutes. It wasn't a case of just moving from one platform to another, but more like ascending multiple escalators, exiting one station and descending multiple escalators to enter a different one. Never mind, we managed it in the end and just had a short walk of around a kilometre or so before we reached our hotel.

We were absolutely starving by this point, but we arrived just at 10pm which is the same time at which the hotel restaurant stops serving. Unlucky! We quickly dropped our suitcase in our room and then headed out in the hope of finding somewhere that was still serving food at this time of night.

We got lucky and actually found a really nice restaurant just around the corner from where we're staying. There was lots of Turkish food on the menu but we decided to be unadventurous on our first night and opt for chicken schnitzel and chips.

The meal was amazingly good value - around £18 in total - and we got a free cup of tea at the end as well.

The next morning we met up with my family, who had made it here before us, and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant with beautiful views out over Istanbul. Then we set off to see some sights! One of the reasons we'd come to Istanbul at this time of year was in the hope of seeing tulips, but the weather forecast had made it look like the region had been having a particularly cold spring, so I wasn't sure whether they were going to be out yet. My fears were soon allayed when we were walking down some of the small streets of the old town and came across this display

Before too long we'd made it to our first sight; the obelisk of Constantine.

Apparently it used to be completely covered in brass  

There's another, more Egyptian-looking obelisk further behind it...

...and beyond that we got our first glimpse of what we'd come here to see: the Blue Mosque.

The Blue Mosque is absolutely enormous!

Unlike a lot of sights in Istanbul, this one is free to enter. We walked into the courtyard...

.

...and then made our way to the visitor entrance, where we had to prepare to cover our heads and take off our shoes.

And then we were inside!

The inside of the mosque was so ornate it was incredible.

I really loved the stained glass windows - for some reason I hadn't expected to see those in a mosque.

The ceiling was really beautiful too.

The hijab I bought for going to Qatar was coming in useful here!

As you can see from the photos, there were a lot of people inside - including multiple tour groups - but because the mosque is so large, it felt big enough to absorb them.

According to my guidebook, the mosque was built between 1609 and 1616; it seems unbelievable that it was finished in such a short space of time.

As we moved outside again we noticed these striped arches, which are very reminiscent of the former mosque/cathedral in Cordoba, Spain.

From outside you can get a sense of how huge the building is.

We only had a short walk from here to the next place on our agenda: the Hagia Sophia.

Today this one is also a mosque, though it was originally built as a Byzantine orthodox cathedral.

The original church was built here some time around 500 and remained Christian until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

In the 1930s it became a museum, but the Turkish government has recently reinstated it as a mosque.

As you can see in the photos, there are some beautiful grounds in front of it and when we turned around we had a great view back towards the Blue Mosque.

Unlike the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia is not free and we had to queue up to buy entrance tickets. The queue wasn't too long though, despite multiple men telling us that it would be and trying to sell us tours to skip it. Before too long we had passed through security and were inside.

The area which is open for visiting is a first floor gallery, which we had to climb up to.

The ground floor seems to be in use as a mosque and only accessible for prayer.

In some places the building seemed very Islamic...

...and then every so often we'd come across mosaics or paintings which definitely dated from its previous life as a church.

The decorations were mostly really beautiful...

...although I wasn't a huge fan of this slightly scary angel(?).

At times I wished I'd read up a bit more on mosques so I could understand what I was looking down at.

These mosaics at the end were really stunning.

And there was one final mosaic right at the end, which I almost missed because a large Italian tour group was in the way!

We didn't have far to go until our next destination: the Basilica Cistern.

This rather unusual attraction is just across the road from the Hagia Sophia. Again it requires paying an entrance fee and queueing for a relatively short amount of time. Once we'd bought tickets we descended via steps into an underground chamber.

This is the largest of apparently hundreds of ancient cisterns which lie below Istanbul.

It was constructed in the sixth century and was essentially a large underground reservoir which supplied water to this part of the city.

It is supported by hundreds of columns, which vary in size and shape.

There's only a small amount of water down here today, but there were places where you had to be careful to stick to the path and not accidentally get pushed in by other tourists.

The whole place is very atmospheric, though the atmosphere changes depending on what colour the ground-level lights are currently projecting.

The yellow light was quite warm; other colours made it feel more eerie.

We passed some rather unusual pillars...

....and scary sculptures.

Some pillars clearly looked very old and Roman.

It was a fun place to explore, but it was also nice to get back out into the fresh air afterwards!

Luckily we had a very nice place to get some fresh air afterwards, and that was the nearby Gülhane Park.

There were some incredible displays of tulips there.

I loved the red ones...

...but there were also all kinds of different colours.

We also found a statue of Ataturk...

...some strange trees that looked like overgrown bonsais...

...and a cool Istanbul sign

Tim and I were hungry at this point and ended up getting lunch in a nearby restaurant. I had a chicken kebab...

...while Tim had a type of Turkish chicken casserole.

It wasn't as cheap as yesterday's meal because we were in such a touristy area, but we did still get a free cup of tea afterwards.

We walked to the transport hub of Eminönü, where we reunited with my family.

We had a great view from here of the so-called New Mosque.

We took a tram to the suburb of Fener, which is famous for it's colourful buildings.

And they really are colourful!

The streets here were a bit difficult to navigate and you had to be careful not to be mown down by cars, motorbikes and vans, but the views were fantastic.

There was a mosque here we were planning to visit and the route to it involved a significant amount of uphill. Once we made it, we were disappointed to find that we'd mistimed our visit and it was closed for prayer time. So this was the best view we got!

The mosque was set in nice grounds though and there was a good view downhill.

Back downhill was the way we now had to climb! We stopped at a Turkish pub to have a quick drink and use the toilets. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of this but it was definitely an authentic local experience  And we ended up with a beer, a water, two teas and a coffee for the equivalent of £8 so we definitely couldn't complain.

On the way back to the tram stop, we got a glimpse of St Stephen's Orthodox church. It really was just a glimpse - the church was shut and completely fenced off - but it was interesting to see.

Then it was time to start the long journey back to our hotel. The first tram went well and Tim even managed to buy me a pair of sunglasses (I accidentally left mine at home!) in the underpass between tram stops. The second tram went less well, when the doors closed on a tram which Tim had managed to get on without any of the rest of us. Then when the next tram came, it was so crowded that the rest of my family managed to squeeze on and I failed. I eventually managed to get the third tram, which was much quieter, and we all made it back to the hotel in the end   It was an eventful end to what has been quite an adventure-packed day!