Our train crossed over to the Turkey border in the middle of the night. Everyone on the train had to wake up, get off the train at a deserted railway station, go into the customs office and present our passports for approval to enter the country so that we could continue on our journey. We were so sleepy.
Today we said goodbye to our train and moved to a hotel in Istanbul so we can visit this town and see some of its history and culture.
We decided some fresh air would help us wake up more so we went for a walk to see the Hippodrome. We had heard about this place but didn’t know what it meant. We learned that it is a huge public square with all sorts of monuments around the walkways, but it was originally a sporting circus that was built in the 1st century AD.
in the picture there is a gazebo that is a fountain, given to Istanbul by Germany honouring to German Emperor’s 1898 visit, and the Obelisk of Theodosius that was originally in Egypt and re-created in the square in the 4th century AD by a Roman emperor.
There are many other monuments and we could also see some really special old buildings. We decided to take a look in the buildings too.
First we decided to visit Topkapi Palace. It’s a huge palace, covering about 700,000 square metres and surrounded by walls. It was built in Ottoman times (around the mid 1400#; and was originally the residence for the sultan and his family, then later royal officers as well as administrative offices.
Later on we were lucky enough to be able to go into the Blue Mosque. It can be very crowded and public visitors cannot go there during prayer times. They call to prayer over a loud speaker that we can hear from a long way away.
Inside the mosque is amazing, we didn’t know where to look first. It’s huge and divided by a railing so men prayer on one side and women on the other. Everyone has to take off their shoes to go inside and women also need to have their hair covered (so glad we had a scarf).
We learned that this Mosque is actually called Sultanahmet Mosque, but people call it the Blue Mosque because of the 20,000 handmade blue tiles all around inside (so pretty). It was built between 1609 and 1617: and is so big it can hold 10,000 people.
It was quite something to see.
Well Behaved Kids Travel 