Sightseeing with Seçkin and Sonya (April 11)

In the next installment of my Istanbul explorations, I ended up going with Seçkin and Sonya. We made our way through public transit to Sultanahmet.

Once there, we were able to find the entrance to the Basilica Cistern. This site is actually really neat because it is completely underground. You take a set of stairs down and it opens up into this very large underground cavern. The cistern, as implied by the name, was the place where all of Istanbul’s water was kept. The water was taken from the Belgrade Forest through the Valens aqueduct and deposited here. During the Byzantine Empire, it provided the water for all of Constantinople. When the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453, they actually did not know about the cistern. It was discovered when a woman was lowering her bucket in what she thought was a well and in addition to water, a fish was inside her well.

A board walk is built above the actual ground for tourists to walk on because water is still in the bottom of the opening. Fish also still swim in this water, which is rather neat to see. The room itself is rather dark, lit by artificial lighting for the tourists. The room is held up by rows upon rows of columns. If you look closely at the top of these columns each of them have different designs. It makes me wonder if it was done like this on purpose or if these were left over columns taken from other ruined structures (it makes sense because there is no reason for it to look pretty since it was underground anyway. There are also some columns that have had to be replaced/ restored to make sure the place is preserved. When you walk all the way to the back, there is a famous column known as medusa’s column which has a carving of her on it (see picture).

After the cistern, we purchased Maraş dondurma (literally meaning Maraş ice cream). This province in Turkey is known for making a special type of ice cream that is a sticky ice cream. Instead of licking it, you have to sort of chew it. I had not known about it actually until Smitha asked me about it in February after I arrived in Turkey. She had seen some sort of documentary on it and was asking me if I had tried it. Well unfortunately, because of the cold weather, it was not really available around Turkey during February or March, so this was my first chance to try it. It was indeed chewy, but very good. Anytime I can when walking along the streets, I try to find it now (they sell it in a cart in touristy areas like Taksim and Sultanahment).

As we were chewing our ice cream, we made our way to Gülhane Park (Gülhane literally means place of roses). This park is one of the many that are in Istanbul. This park is particularly special because it is adjacent to Topkapi Palace. It connects the area near Sultanahmet all the way to the Golden Horn, making it a nice alternative to the tram to walk to Eminönü. The park was especially wonderful to visit in the springtime. Istanbul is known for its tulips, which were in full bloom by the time we visited Gülhane Park. In fact, many flowers littered the landscape. It was the most colorful spring time weather I had ever seen! It was absolutely incredible. I took several pictures of the colors. In the park, they were selling flowers if I wanted to take them home. Sadly, the US Department of Agriculture would not like that very much, so I could not. I had a nice time with Sonya and Seçkin, as they are both really nice people.

After the park, we decided to go see the famous Süleyman Camıı. Unfortunately, due to repairs that were supposed to finish two months ago, only a small portion of this massive complex was open to the public. It was a bit disappointing because we only got to see that one room. Hopefully they will finish with this construction before I return back to the states. After the mosque, we got back on the tramway and made our way back home.