Since it is monday and some places are closed for the day I decided to go to the Grand Bazaar and then to the Spice market. Another factor in the decision was I met a carpet seller this morning and he was very persistant so I said I would come back after breakfast, the bazaars are the other way.
Breakfast at the hotel is not outstanding but there is plenty of it. Boiled eggs, cereal and bread with jam. I love the Turkish bread so it is OK just not what you expect in a hotel. Even in Vietnam I was getting omlet in the $5 hotel rooms.
The Grand Bazaar was first built in 330ad and has been added to over the years so now it is nearly 1km square. It is made up of 16 caravanserais, 64 lanes,2000 shops and it own police station. Lonely planet has a walking tour in it so I tried to follow that. You guessed it I got lost, a few times, but I usually do with them. So I got a really good look at the Grand Bazaar. It is just like any market anywhere in the world, full of characters trying to sell stuff. It is the same stuff you can buy anywhere in the world. If I was buying I could have had some fun there but it is day 1 and I am not going to carry stuff for the next 6 weeks so I was just looking. I have to say parts of the building were very impressive and I really enjoyed looking at the building.
After this I consulted my map and headed to the spice market. There was a couple of Mosque's I wanted to check out on the way. I eventually didn't take the most direct route but still managed to find me way there. I got to see the harbour (most of the cruise ships have gone to Anzac cove already) and the surrounding area.
The day actually turned out to be Mosque day. I went to about 6 today. They all look the same from the outside and they are pretty similar on the inside. Some are a bit different with stained glass windows, a few have lots of mosaic tiles but really very similar. One I wanted to see because it has extensive tiles, took me ages to find. It is quite small and the gates are hidden. Well hidden till you find them then it is easy.
Tonight I snuck into the Blue Mosque. The guard on the side gate wasn't paying attention so I walked straight in. I thought I had saved 20 lira but it turns out it was free anyway. It was a bigger version of what I had seen all day. Two things I noticed, it is massive inside, as you would expect, and the lights hang really low. I don't know why but the lights are only about 2mtr off the ground.
After dinner, kebab again ( Im loving the food, kebab, Turkish bread, lokum) I went for a walk to get some night pics.
They are having the tulip festival here now so there are tulips everywhere. You probably don't know but tulips are native to Turkey. They originally came from here but the dutch have made them famous and taken over as the number one place for tulips.