We’ve spent the morning today catching a few more sites in the Sultanahmet district, which I feel we’ve got to know pretty well by now. Firstly went to the Hippodrome area to see the Obelisks they have up there… particularly like the Obelisk of Theodosius which seems strangely out of place, yet fits in perfectly ?!?! I know – that doesn’t make sense… mumble mumble…. dont ask… :S Not a great morning in this area… surrounded by American tourists who for some reason seem much noisier than any other variety…. why is that? They can’t go anywhere without loudly proclaiming things like ‘Dad! Go stand next to Chris!!!’
After that we went for a good wander through the museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts which was excellent …. had far more local content than the Archeology Museum we did the other day. There was fantastic long galleries full of the most amazing antique turkish carpets, beautiful embroidery, antique calligraphy works, brass items from the 15thC and 16thC, ceramic flasks and bowls from the 13thC and some beautiful wood work items too…. all showing a decided middle eastern style and design. It was well worth the 5YTL entrance fee 🙂
In around more annoying American (no offense meant to you Dave2! I am sure you weren’t an annoying American tourist when you were here last week! 🙂 I managed to take lots of interesting photos of some of the exhibits, in particular this astronomy chart, and this crazy 18thC Astrolabe, which I would just love to pull out and play with 🙂
After the museum, we went for a wander around the markets near the Blue Mosque. I remember this area from 12 years ago, where we met this strange little man named Joe (i think) who claimed he was the first hippie in Istanbul and we ended up buying leather goods from him. I also bought a Turkish puzzle ring from here on my last trip and thought about buying another one today… but seeing that the last one got stolen from my house, I kinda thought maybe it would be tempting nasty arse fate to replace it…. dont want the house to get robbed again :S Stupid huh?
We are off to meet our fellow travellers this afternoon for the Tukey Unplugged tour what takes off tomorrow. It is kinda nervy to be meeting a bunch of people that you dont know and you know you wont be able to get away from for the next three weeks! 😀 Hope the turn out to be a relaxed and groovy bunch.
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