April 12 - More Mosques, Cistern and Museums

The weather is much better today.  Cool but sunny.  We will be touring Istanbul all day today.

Our first stop was the Rustempasa neighborhood…

where we are visiting the Rustempasa Mosque.  This is a small mosque with a single minaret.  It isn’t a big tourist draw but it does have wonderful tiles. 

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More Rustempasa Mosque
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A short walk through the neighborhood took us to the Spice Market.  There was a large square outside the market with good views of Rustempasa Mosque.

One thing we especially love in our travels is visiting markets.  Most are very colorful with interesting wares.  In this case, we visited the Istanbul Spice Market...and it didn't disappoint.  The market itself was covered.  In addition to lots of spices there were lots of sweets (the baklava in Istanbul is exceptional), colorful Mideastern lamps, flashy jewelry (costume and real), foods, and all types of goods...some for locals but many to tempt the tourists.  (Nope, didn't buy anything.)

Evil eye – hang by your door to keep evil from entering.

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More Spice Market
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On the far side of the Spice Market was the pet and garden market... 

and another mosque.

The pet market had several large bottles with leeches.  No idea what they were for and didn’t ask.

On the way to our next stop we passed the Orient Express Train Station.  It is no longer used but is always pointed out as it is of interest to most tourists.

The next major stop was the Serefiye Cistern.  Istanbul has a number of old (5^th century) cisterns that were built to store water, helpful when the city was under siege.  This one has been restored and you can go down inside to see it. 

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More Serefiye Cistern
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It is massive and has many columns holding it all up.  And they have put in a light and video show that we saw.  Makes it rather interesting.

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Video of light show 1
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Video of light show 2
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Video of light show 3
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We passed through the Hippodrome area again.  Since it wasn’t raining, and the light was better we took a few more shots.

The Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum was most interesting with exhibits from all over the Middle East.

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More Turkish and Islamic Museum
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We then took a walk-through a nearby park that had many tulips blooming.  Tulips originated in Central Asia and the Turks were the first to cultivate them.  In fact, the tulip is their national flower.  The tulip is found on many of the tiles that we saw.  They were going to be having the tulip celebration soon but we were about a week too soon as many of the beds were only just about ready to bloom.

Our walk to the Archeology Museum took us back through the neighborhood by the Topaki Palace.

Turkish history is vast and we could never quite keep all of the various Eras and Ages and Conquerors straight.  And the Turkish and Islamic History Museum covered a lot of territory. 

One of the main exhibits were the tombs and sarcophagi.

There was also an exhibit that showed measurement standards. This was a standard for measuring length.

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More Archaeology Museum
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On our way back to our hotel we had a good view of the Hagia Sophia from a distance.