Not every story starts as expected.
The last couple of hours in Istanbul we spent at the airport, not knowing if the booking of the airline did work and we gonna leave in the night. We still missed the confirmation email and did not get any answers from the airline, also they did not pick up the phone, Bernd was grumbling all the time and complained that we should have stayed at the hostel. Finally they opened the counter and we got the good news that we gonna be on the flight leaving this night.
Last thing we wanted to see was the tower of Galata, not tat far away from our hostel and we still got enough time before we got to take the bus to the airport. The tower is a very massive and high building, still higher than the newer buildings around there, so everyone would go up there and take a look around. So there was a huge line of people waiting to get up the tower, after waiting several minutes and not being able to make a single step we gave up waiting and walked along the busy streets getting some good Turkish food.
After the boat trip and saying goodbye to our company we went to the Galata tower, only for taking a look at it in the night and knowing the way there and get there tomorrow. At the hostel Bernd immediately went to bed and started snoring. Cause I was not in the mood for going to bed I spent some time in the living room playing backgammon with a girl from Switzerland and having good conversations. Also I again tried to reach the airline to check for our flight, without any success.
At the bridge to get from Fatih back to Taksim we stopped by at one of this boats offering cheap trips on the Bosporus, it was really cheap and not like typical tourist traps so we decided to get aboard and we did not have to wait a minute for the departure, good timing. On the boat we met a German teacher living and working in Istanbul and learned a lot about Istanbul, it's history and about other things about the things going on. Good idea to get on boat, also to see the bridges with the lighting in the dark.
When we arrived at the first bridge at the golden horn it was almost sunset so we could see the sun going down and having a great view on the sunset, an amazing view. Again we bought some Turkish food at the street to have some dinner and strengthening us for the long way back.
So we decided to go down the hill to the Bosporus and walk along the kai. On the way down we bought at the street watermelon and ate it at the "seaside" looking around. There we were thinking of getting back to the hostel, which was still far away, so we kept on walking along the kai and have seen the way the people live her, also seeing a special kind of a cottage built out of simple material.
From Yerebatan Sarnici we went to the blue mosque spending some time in the park at the fountain, having a good time and enjoying the view on the blue mosque (Sultanahmet Camii). Maybe we should not have taken the break or a longer one, because the mosque was closed due to praying time. Bernd was not upset, he was fine with not going in there because we had already been in some mosques so we won't miss that much.
Deeper inside we got to the crying column where it's told to get luck when flipping a coin on it, so sometimes we act like all other tourists and we flipped a coin. And we got more deeper into the cistern, when we saw her, well Bernd was the first one of us who saw her. The Medusa, Bernd screamed out in panic and ran away, scared of getting petrified by her gaze. He was already up the stairs before I could tell him that it it was only a stone sculpture on the bottom of a column.
But we found our way to a very special place I wanted to see all the time in Istanbul, last time I have been in the city I could not get there because we had to spent most of the time with some guides. We went to the Yerebatan Sarnici, the underground cistern. The translation into German was quite strange, they call it "the sunken palace", that place was planned to be underground and it was used to have fresh water also when the city will be under siege. Inside of there we got to see many high columns in a big hall and were able to walk around on some wooden lathes above the water.
In the centre of Fatih we missed our destination, but that was not so bad, we walked along some old streets with nice houses and got to the old area Süleymaniye, were we visited Süleymaniye Mosque and saw some nice places and parks.
From the mosque we directly wanted to go into the spice market, a big hall next to it, because of this holidays it was completely closed so we could only walk along some small streets with shops on it.
Bernd and I got across the bridge with thousands of fishermen's on it and entered the mosque Yeni Cami next to the spice market Misir Çarsis. After seeing all the beautiful churches in Europe it was a great new experience seeing a mosque from the inside, the floor is covered with nice carpets and the walls showing good artworks, no paintings of any holy persons, a lot of lines and circles and Arabic letters.
Along the street we stopped at some stairs with street arts, it wasn't the typical thing you could see, no artists, singers or other entertainers, also no graffitis. Some guys painted the stairs leading up like a rainbow, which looked pretty cool. Later we got told that they made it without permission in the night and first the municipality let it over paint, but that could not stop the artist so he put back the colours. After a while the municipality agreed to the street arts and left it there also giving some information about the idea and the arts. Things like that should happen more often, especially when it is an idea like that.
On our way to get there Bernd got to see the first big mosque, before on the way we could only see some minarets. The minute we got there the muezzin started the praying. Bernd first thought that someone was doing some practises for a singing contest and told me that this guy would not make it through the first audition. I told him that it he is caslling the moslems to the prayers and not singing for a stupid competition.
At the Bosporus we got to see a nice building of the parliament and the Turkish Big Ben, well this Ben is also not really big, but we both got the idea of saying it's the Big Ben.
First thing we did after our first short night in Istanbul was going to the office of our airline for the next flight, we did have to change something with the booking and did not get any feedback, so we were not sure if everything worked as we expected it. The office was not far away from the bus stop we arrived the night before from the airport. Unfortunately the office was closed and at a travel agency close by we got the information that right now there is some kind of Islamic Lenten season, so the office won't be open. At least he gave us the number of the office at the airport, which opened only at night.
So more waiting to figure that out, so we went down to the Bosporus to the Dolmanahçe palace and decided to walk to Fatih and some special sights in the historical part of the city.
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