Wednesday, May 8, 2002 15:02
Weather: Partly cloudy. Hah! News to report at last!
Location: Upper Gallery, Aya Sofya, Istanbul.

Having paid 15,000,000 TLR to enter Aya Sofya and another 15,000,000 to get access to the Upper Galleries, I'm in no hurry to leave. This is a strangly haunted building, with little artificial light so parts of the structure are in deep shadow even with the bright sunlight outside streaming through the windows. All of the trappings of a Christian church have long since been stripped out--it was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453--but a few of the glittering mosaics on the walls up here were merely covered over and are now starting to be restored.

This is a huge building, almost as big as St. Peter's in Rome, though in a square shape, rather than cruciform. Up here the clamour of the tour groups below merges together with the echoes into a constant babble, almost mystic in quality.

Istanbul! I confess that even now my heart is not in it as much as it should be. There's certainly a lot to see, and my pension is perfectly located in the heart of Sultanahmet, just down the hill from Aya Sofya and backing onto the Imperial Palace walls. I can't wait to get home to Toronto, though, and was actually thinking of changing my ticket and coming home tomorrow, before I realized how much I'd later regret missing the opportunity to see this city. No matter. Saturday is close enough!

My bus pulled into Istanbul's enormous bus station at 7:45 this morning. "Enormous" doesn't really do it justice. It's a hexagonal set of buildings the size of a major airport terminal, with enough room for the dozens of bus companies and hundreds of buses that use it. After an uncertain delay, I managed to get on a complimentary minibus heading downtown, which let me off at a tram station. From there it was six stops on very crowded trams during rush hour to Gulhame, at the foot of the road where the Coskun Pension sits, where I had a reserved room.

Despite my early arrival, Coskun were kind enough to let me into my room. It's a bit small, and smells of fresh paint: I'm the first guest in it, a recent expansion. But it has a little bathroom, so my first three priorities (toilet, laundry, shower) were easily cleared away.

Next step was breakfast, Turkish-style, in a cafe near the Blue Mosque: a small omelette, with olives, cheese, tomato, onion, lettuce and lots of fresh bread, and a thick black Turkish coffee.

Thus restored, I spent the remaining hour of the morning going into the Blue Mosque, which has an exquisite interior but is not a lot visit, as there is only the one room (and foreign visitors are only allowed in one section of it).

My next step was an Internet cafe, where I caught up on a couple of emails but was unable to update the Blog, due to security setting issues on the terminal. I'll try and find another one later.

Lunch was a delicious yogurt salad, followed by chicken kebab, served with a flat bread not unlike naan. Now I should get moving. The Gallery is due to close soon, and I need to see the rest of this church. More to follow!
posted by Tom at 2:44 PM | link |