Istanbul, Sunday 15 June, Day 53

A windy hot morning so we decided on inside and cool activities for the morning. First up we visited the Sultan_Ahmed_Mosque aka the Blue Mosque. A huge crowd milling about meant that it did not have anything like the peaceful atmosphere of the Little Hagia Sophia round the corner, but it is an impressive space none the less. Next we pottered round the Hippodrome, site allegedly of a massacre of thousands of revolting citizens ordered by Justinian  during the Nika_riots in 532.  Hard to imagine as it is such a peaceful and pleasant place today. The Mosque souvenir shops are a pleasant change from many other shops as you don't get hassled, so we bought a few things there.

Next stop was the Basilica_Cistern, another but more benign outcome of Justinian's rule. For what is effectively an underground water tank or reservoir, the Byzantines certainly put in a lot of effort. The columns come from all over the empire, and are recycled from other buildings. The capitols - mostly Corinthian - are very ornate, and you wonder why they put that much effort on to something which you wouldn't expect many people to see. But it makes a great spectacle today, and we enjoyed the vaulted ceilings and eerie vistas, the dark water with the occasional huge fish gliding into the patches of light, and, of course, the mysterious Medusa heads which form the base of two columns in a back corner.

Did the builders have a couple of columns that were just a bit short, and a couple of chunks of old Greek marble statue lying around that were just the right size to make up the short fall, or is there some meaning in the placement of the heads?

We walked back to our neighbourhood, past one restaurant proprietor who now knows us well by sight, and seems more crestfallen each time we don't eat at his establishment. We might have to have lunch there soon, or find another way to walk.  We hardened our hearts today however, and had lunch at the place in the park again, which is very relaxed and peaceful, and the food is good.

After a rest and catching up with some things, we headed out again, this time to visit the Grand Bazaar. We only skirted down the edge of it, but that was plenty thank you. We tried out our Istanbul kart, a myki like RFID card for public transport. It works really well. Tram stops are like mini train stations, with turnstile entry gates. Each gate has a burly security guard with a hefty truncheon, so fare evasion would be minimal. Recharging is easy and fast. You put your card on one of the recharge terminals, machine says something in Turkish. You insert note, wait 10 seconds, the machine says something else in Turkish and the new balance on your card flashes on screen. You take card and walk away. The whole transaction takes about 30 seconds. With a population of 20 million to move around the city, you have to have a system that works. You might think the same would apply for a city like Melbourne with 5.5 million people, but apparently not.

As we headed off down the hill a Turkish man said to us "You're walking like carpet buyers", a nice bit of wry humour. The people are often very witty, and extremely sharp.  Three different traders have identified us as Australians. I'm not sure what the tell tale characteristics are.

We had dinner at the cat restaurant, both of us secretly wanting to see the mother to be cat again so we could feed her, but there was a different cast of cats who were appreciative of some of our sea bream - as we were. It was delicious.

We got Museum passes today, which are valid for 72 hours from first use, so tomorrow we will start on the museum trail.