Istanbul

Another couple of days gone by in Istanbul...

We went to Topkapi Palace on Wednesday. This is the palace that the Turkish Sultans reigned from until some time around the 19th century. It's a huge complex of buildings set in 4 courtyrds, a bit like thr forbidden city in a way, just a different architectural style and more rambling. There's a lot of gilt and rococco flourishes from more recent times but because the buildings are separated by gardens and courtyards it looks quite pretty rather than tacky.

The first area we visited was the Harem (yeah, you have to pay extra for that part!) And the word de jour is Tiles, Tiles, Tiles! Definately a one track mind to interior decoration or maybe just easy to clean! It's actually quite impressive to go through room after room of floor to ceiling hand-painted floral blue tiles but after to first 20 rooms or so we were getting tiled out.

The story with tha Harem is that the most promising young women were brought in and given a high standard of education and grooming, decent food and so-forth. It was very compeditive, not because they all really fancied the Sultan but because if he favoured you there were more perks, like private quarters, more servants and privilages.
Sultans had up to a hundred or so children usually but his wife's children were the ones in the line of succession and if they died it would go to the sons of the cheif concubine. Only a couple of concubines made it to wife status, the most famous being Roxelana, the wife of Sulyman. She had incredible power as mother to the sultan after Sulyan died but when she eventually died her son was a weak ruler. His wife (also an Odalesque) effectively ruled the country and history repeated itself.
There were a lot of murderings and goings-on, they were not nice ladies but living cooped up in that place would drive a person a bit mad.

The rooms are pretty but small, even the courtyards arn't that big, bad news for claustrophobics. It's not like the hollywood version of a Harem at all.

The whole place was packed with tourists as well. REALLY packed. There were big groups of scoolkids too, noisey little buggers! Some of the exhibition rooms we skipped because the crowds were so thick. History overload!q Too much to see and too much of the same thing but it was interesting.

Yesterday we did a couple of ferry trips on the Bospherous which divides the East and West sides of Istanbul. It's very relaxing and gives nice views of the city and is also a releif from the hot weather. We went to Taksim square which is the equivilent of High st in London or Hayst in Perth.
There's about 20 million people in Istanbul so the size of the shopping boulevard matches the size of the population. Major consumerism! You could shop till you dropped for a week and hardly make a dent. Anyone who is into fashion, Istanbul is hugely impressive. Every designer, most european chain stores are here.
A bit high-end for me but I know some of you gym ladies would love it. We really didn't! Too many people, too many shops...

It was nice to get back to our cozy little area, eat a couple of kebabs and have coffe and cake
at the local cafe.