Eastern European Vacation Day 10

Saturday November 6th, 2010.
Our second day in Istanbul; today we visited the Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar.

The Topkapi Palace is absolutely massive – it sprawls over a very large area and includes many buildings, courtyards and gardens. We arrived around mid morning in an effort to beat the crowds which only partially worked out. Topkapi was the home of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire; the palace is now a museum and most of the main rooms have been converted into display areas for the hundreds of artifacts in the collection.

We saw the elaborate clothes of the Sultan; some with curiously long arms. There was also a display of weapons, but the main event was the collection of jewels and jewel encrusted items. The most famous of the jewels is the spoonmakers diamond – a huge 86 caret diamond that has been beautifully cut and polished and placed in a setting surrounded by many other large diamonds. The story goes that this diamond was actually discovered in a rubbish dump and that person who found it thought is was just a worthless rock – in fact he was happy to sell it to a spoonmaker for 3 spoons. A huge dispute erupted when the true value of the stone became known; the sultan had to step in and offer to buy the stone in order to settle the dispute.

We progressed to the Harem area of the palace – definitely the highlight. The Harem was not only the place where the Sultan kept his female entourage but also where his personal apartments are located, along with those of his mother, the rest of the family and a large contingent of Eunuchs. The whole set up was just fascinating and weird.

One could easily spend days on the Topkapi Palace, but we were getting hungry and in need of a little recharge – so we stopped for lunch before heading to the Grand Bazaar.

The Grand Bazaar is, well, both grand and bazaar – it is a huge indoor market with dozens of alleyways arranged roughly on an orthogonal grid, though the further you get into the bazaar the narrower the alleys appear to become. Entry to the bazaar was a bit daunting as we were approached by several persistent “carpet sellers” some who would just not take “no” for an answer and insisted on following us around for a while. Inside the bazaar is a constant loud, chaotic flurry of energy – boys rushing from shop to shop delivering tea in tiny little glass cups, merchants shouting to attract attention and every now and again a customer can been seen actually performing the art of negotiation. After some time of wandering the alleys it all begins to look the same, so we made a few quick purchases and headed out.

It was just a short walk to the tram car and before long we were heading back to the ship. We headed straight for the Golden Lion Pub where we debriefed over a few drinks before dressing for dinner.