Since Istanbul is so full of history, we’ve been seeing sights at a more rapid pace than usual. As we’ve traveled this year, we’ve realized that we’re slower travelers, doing one or (maybe) two things a day, preferring to save our energy for the long haul. And it has been pretty long–we’re at around three-quarters of a year at this point!

On Monday, we went on a walking tour through the old town here. This included the history of many of the oldest buildings in Istanbul. Since I’ve already covered the Hagia Sofia, here is the Blue Mosque. Our guide, Erol, told us that the domes you see are characteristic of Turkish mosques in particular. Erol also said that there are an amazing 3500! mosques in the city. You can hear them all announce the call to prayer at the same time; it’s pretty cool.

The garden area of the mosque was blocked by this fence with the tulip symbol below. Apparently, tulips originated in Turkey and are a symbol of Islam! I had no idea. There are beautiful tulips planted in parks throughout the city, so I should’ve suspected.

Next to the Blue Mosque is the ancient hippodrome. The arena is all but gone, but they have saved some of the monuments that were on the median in the center of the track. Just like in Rome, they had an obelisk shipped in from Egypt. I have to apologize for this horrible picture; I’ve been doing such terrible job with them lately.

Although we didn’t see it until today, Erol also introduced us to the Basilica Cistern–a huge cistern that the Emperor Justinian had created in case of sieges or water shortages. As Erol mentioned many, many times, Sean Connery rowed a boat through the cistern in one of the James Bond movies. The place was opened to the public in the 80s. You can get an idea of size from my first picture below. People were lined up to dress in Ottoman garb have their picture taken with a belly-dancer or fake Sultan.

Justinian had his 7000 slaves reuse columns and sculptures from old buildings to create the cistern. As a consequence, a few Medusas got taken to be the base of a couple columns.

As we’ve been walking around the city, we’ve seen several stores selling an astonishing assortment of guns in the underpass. The guns are seemingly sold in all-purpose stores, right next to hair-dryers and children’s toys. Even to me as a American, it seems a bit dangerous.

We walked through the Grand Bazaar today–the oldest covered market in the world. It has existed since the 15th century and has 4000 or so stores. Check out all the Turkish flags! There are over-the-top numbers of them throughout the city.

I didn’t see the no-photo signs until after I took the picture. And the lamps are so pretty…

Yesterday I went to the Archaeological Museum here. Turkey has some of the best Greek ruins in the world, so I was excited. It was a great collection, but I was a bit appalled by the conduct of the other museum-goers. Children were playing hide-and-go-seek around Byzantine grave steles and climbing all over Hittite altars from the 8th century BCE. The museum guards were smoking cigarettes out the window and totally ignoring everything! It took everything in me to crush my teacher instinct; I wanted to scold literally everyone in the room! They would’ve deserved it!

They had a lot of friezes from the ancient Near East. Here’s a genie from 9th century BCE! He’s picking fruit from the tree of life!

And a lion from outside the gates of Babylon!

Beautiful sarcophagus with the story of Meleager. He helped kill that boar being carried near the center of the frieze.

This sarcophagus’s figures are life-size! My guesses are Artemis, Zeus, and Hera.

A gladiator’s tomb!

Finally, a small sample of the cats of Istanbul. The city is full of ’em. These will undoubtedly be the most popular photos–yay for the kitties!. 🙂

A Sammy loaf look-alike.

A very dirty, very fearless kitty. She was sleeping in the entrance to the underpass!

Addendum: Some photos from two amazing museums in Istanbul. First, Istanbul Modern.

This is actually painted! It’s called “Thorned Posters” by Dikenli Afisler.

A quilt made after a Women’s Day March. If you want to know the artists, just ask. I have them written down somewhere.

A really cool textured house fire. If you look closely, it’s made of separate pieces, like a puzzle.

A forest that reminds me a little of Ashley’s paper cut-outs.

I also went to the Pera Museum, which was having a fantastic exhibit about modern Chinese art.

I loved this. Check out a detail of it below. It’s my new phone background.