Istanbul Thurs 5 April 2007

After a decent night’s sleep we decide to stay in the 0 star establishment as the thought of repacking and hunting for somewhere in the rain is just too daunting. The morning is spent talking with shipping agents and insurers and then we venture forth to explore the Blue Mosque (Sultan Amet Camii) a few hundred metres away. It is of course on the UNESCO World Heritage list, as is the entire Sultanamet area in which we are staying, certainly our bathroom deserves its place. The Blue Mosque, built in the early 1600s during the decline of the Ottoman empire is reputedly one of the most famous religious buildings in the world, with its cascades of domes, blue interior tile-work and six soaring minarets.

Next we tiptoe across the park full of tulips to the nearby Haghia Sophia, built more than a century earlier by the emperor Justinian as the largest church in Christendom. Although it lacks something of the external splendour of the Blue Mosque with only one main dome and two minarets - surely a later addition when it became a mosque -inside its most impressive with soaring spaces and some magnificent mosaics. The Church cum Mosque became a museum in the 1930s and is undergoing permanent restoration works with massive scaffolding in the nave but even this doesn’t detract from the grandeur of the space.

It’s increasingly cold and wet and all our warm clothes are somewhere in Oman so we head up to the Grand Bazaar to see if we can find some jumpers and rain coats. After fathoming how the tram system works and a much needed shot of Turkish coffee accompanied by some grilled meat (its hard to tell what sort) we go like lambs to the slaughter into the bazaar, emerging a short while later several degrees warmer but many pounds lighter with coats and jumpers we’ll never wear in Sydney. We console ourselves that they may come in useful in Helsinki if we ever get there.
Then its back to the hotel after catching the tram the wrong way and later we venture out to a smoke filled restaurant for some more meat. By now its stopped raining and the floodlit blue mosque looks magnificent.