A Grand Tourist

During those heady days of the Grand Tour, Italy and Greece lured travellers with their offerings of classical antiquity. The nearby Ottoman Empire however breathed mystery, intrigue and opulence - a life beyond ordinary. Today, the goings-on in the Topkapi Palace seem tame by comparison, but the city of Istanbul remains a tourist magnet.  We knew this, noting at least 4 cruise ships dockside in the Beyoglu quarter.  Still, we too were drawn like moths.

Exotic Asia beyond the Maiden's Tower

 

Consulting our many travel guides (we'd hate to miss a thing!), we headed out early (pre-crowd) to buy our 72 hour museum pass.  Although we had no hope of visiting every site included on the pass (for 75TL), avoiding long ticket queues would save lots of time, essential even if you do have a week to play.  The other key ingredient in our plan was a central hotel.  The Ambassador was just that, with Hagia Sophia and surrounds only a 5 minute walk away and a tram on our doorstep (well, almost). 

View from our breakfast balcony

 

We scheduled our visits with only a few sites each day so as not to rush and planned to avoid any closed days.  Luckily we found out early that Sacrifice Day celebrations were coming up so we were able to work around that too.  From our earlier walking tour (with the tour group) we could prioritise what we wanted to see and knew that both the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (former #1 priority) and the Archaeological Park were closed for significant renovations.

Glittering Gold Mosaics (Hagia Sophia)

GS had also done a little research into textile hotspots, so that information was added to a burgeoning “To Do” list.  A little shopping and a few decent restaurants (for dinner stops) were added in – just to mix it up.  We can’t be too hard core rock hounds…

The tile work was pretty amazing too!