Travel Journal

2002-10-22

Ok, this tour is well-organized.

At lunch we descended on a place called "Pudding Shop", where the food was much more authentic and delicious than the name would suggest. I succumbed to the call of the mushrooms again, since they'd been so good yesterday, and wasn't disappointed.

After lunch, we got onto a tour bus and headed out to see the Chora Church, purported to contain the finest Byzantine mosaics outside of Ravenna. Here Lale again had us sit and drink tea while we listened to her talk about what we were about to see, and we then visited the church on our own. I thought the mosaics in Ravenna were better, perhaps in part because they were from the 6th century, while these were from the 14th century. The ones in Ravenna also seemed better-preserved. Nonetheless, it was beautiful and I'm glad we went to see it.

After the Chora Church, the bus took us back by way of the Grand Bazaar, so anyone who wanted to get out and see the Bazaar could do so, while others could continue onward. We opted to stop at the Grand Bazaar, but didn't find it terribly interesting; it seemed a lot like a cross between a shopping mall and a covered antique market (John remarks that he thought it felt a bit like a boardwalk at the shore.). Our guide remarked in her orientation to the Bazaar on the bus that the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is the original shopping mall. :-)

Anyway, we left the Grand Bazaar after about 10 minutes, and headed back to the hotel, where we're relaxing before dinner.

Other cool stuff today:

We got to know Silje, Pete, Lisa, and Scott better -- they're 2 couples from the Seattle area travelling together. We wound up discussing philosophy and religion with Silje and Pete over lunch, and look forward to continuing the discussion.

On the bus heading to the Chora Church, Lale pointed out the many wedding dress shops in the middle-class part of town we drove through, and told us that 50% of the population in Turkey is under 20. I think she said the median age in Turkey is 27 -- I don't know how that compares to the US, but I can't imagine it's anywhere close! Back to the wedding dresses, it was interesting that some of them were red (though otherwise like wedding dresses one might buy in the US), which is the traditional color for wedding dresses in Turkey. Earlier in the day at the Turkish and Islamic Arts museum, we had seen a red velvet wedding dress made for a sultan's wife in the 19th century.

All in all, a great day, and I'm feeling a lot better about being part of a tour -- for the most part, it's been feeling a lot like a much better organized version of what we might do on our own."

Hagia Sofia

Chora Church