Monday, September 27, 2010

All the really important things....

Istanbul has a lot of really cool stuff--major understatement!
Beginning with the city walls....it was a fortified city at one time.

And then there's the mosques...the glorious, wonderful, stupendous, awesome, utterly beautiful mosques!
The Blue Mosque
As you can tell, I loved those pink flowers!
 Never did find out what they were,
but they were everywhere.
However, there are the lesser known mosque Cats!
Doesn't everybody take photos of cats while on vacation?!
At the entrance of the Blue Mosque.
One photo is not enough, let's get a better look....
Hello, Puss!
Then again, besides the feline distractions, there is this:
Blue Mosque
I should mention here that it was 98 degrees, no breeze, with high humidity; probably warmer inside the mosque. So there I stood in this grandeur, trying to pretend that a torrential sweat was not running down my backside, remaining calm, even striking a thoughtful pose (ha!). One must maintain a sense of decorum afterall. But on the inside....I was jumping for joy, doing cartwheels, exclaiming (oh so thoughtfully, of course): "This is so cool!!!!" 
You could pretty much say I felt that way on the entire trip! 
Inside the Hagia Sofia (Aya Sofya)
For a little perspective,
those round Arabic discs are 25 feet across.
(Isn't that a couple storeys high?)
The Hagia Sofia deserves an encore because it's just that amazing!  (I'll spare you the other 100 or so photos I took of this place! Not kidding!)
Can you tell I have a thing about pillars & columns?


Later, we went to the Topkapi Palace...where the big-time Sultan lived, with his rather large entourage of servants, family, and of course, the Harem.
Speaking of Harems....
Maybe this was a little more along the lines you'd expect to see at a Palace?:
I guess I have a thing for domed ceilings, too!
At one point Mr. Pocketts and I escaped to go to the National Museum of Antiquities. (Still 98 degrees, etc.) Here's what you do when you have a few extra bits laying around:

Any one of these would have been the centerpiece of a museum back where I come from!
And when you blessedly collapse in a chair to have an icy cold Coke (98 degrees...), somebody might be watching you:
Why, hello there, you!
The Turks, or rather the Romans at the time, also made good use of a few leftover Greek bits. During Justinian's reign, ginormous cisterns were built.  And what if you had a couple pillars that, for whatever reason, didn't quite meet the specs? Well, you improvise:
Finally a good use for those pesky, old Medusa heads.
Sometimes you have to do that more than once:

After all that, it sure did feel good to get back to our hotel room and lie down in the air-conditioned bliss! We were dead tired!

While we were gone, our hotel was thinking about us.  They were kind enough to leave treats for us--every day was a Turkish Delight indeed! (sorry, couldn't resist)
or

Ok, so I took photos of my hotel candy--don't judge me! 

And as for the cat picture-taking thing....in my defense, I wasn't the only one!

********* ********* *********

Join me next as, for some quirky reason, I decide that riding across Bulgaria in a bus sounds like a swell idea!


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...