Day #1 — Sunday in Istanbul

Sunday started with breakfast up on the terrace of our guesthouse.

There's a great view of the Sea of Marmara from up there, but it's been a grey, misty, sometimes drizzly day.  That photo will have to wait.

We stepped outside and here was the pomegranate juice vendor just setting up. I promised him I'd come back tomorrow for some juice.

A block away we reach a park. To our left, off in the distance, we see the Blue Mosque.

And to our right, the Aya Sophia, known in Latin as Sancta Sophia. We'll come back to these places later, we tell ourselves, because today we're headed up to see the Whirling Dervishes.

But our way is blocked; there's a marathon going on! I wish you could hear the shouting and cheering and applauding and ululating greeting each runner as they approached the finish line.

So back we went to Aya Sophia, an ancient structure built in 537 as a Greek Orthodox Christian basilica. Byzantine emperors were crowned here under the massive dome.

Just the opposite of the Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain, which was built initially as a mosque and later converted into a Catholic cathedral, the Christian Aya Sophia was converted into a mosque in 1453.

Today, Aya Sophia is a museum, with neither religion practiced there anymore.

I missed the delicate airiness of the Mezquita's forest of arches. This place seemed heavy, without spirit. Kind of sad.

But then, the ancient stonework caught my eye. How incredible to be here in this place constructed 1,477 years ago!  Look up at the ceilings!

How many people have walked through this door?

People were looking down from a balcony above. How did they get up there? Well, they walked up this winding ramp! Look down at the stone floor — how many feet have trod this path since the year 537?

On the way down, on one of the landings, these icons were for sale: 

So like the icons in the monastery at Orhei Vechi in Moldova! So like the icons at Monk's Rock in Kodiak, Alaska!

This door was built in the 2nd century BC, and brought to Aya Sophia a thousand years later.

Detail from the ancient door

This baptistry was inside for almost a thousand years, but was moved to an outdoor area when the church was converted into a mosque.

We left the Aya Sopha and decided to WALK most of the way to the Whirling Dervishes, since the tram was not running. Oh, what a walk! We promised ourselves we'd come back to this place:

But, strong of soul and short of time, we walked on as far as the Golden Horn — which is actually a river leading into the Bosphorus — and then hopped a taxi up to the Medlevi Museum to see the Sufi ritual dating back 800 years, the Whirling Dervishes. They dance only on Sundays, so this was our only chance to see them.

We were very taken by the reverence shown in this ceremony.

Note the musicians up in the balcony.

Outside it was already quite dark. I was charmed by this tram car in the middle of the street!

Chris and Jack, the photo below is especially for you:  It's the Swedish Consulate!

After strolling through the streets of Beyoglu and eating sumptuous meals — no food photos, sorry, I was too hungry and too tired to think of the camera — we figured out how to take the "Tünel" (an underground funicular) and then the tramway back to our neighborhood of Sultanahmet.

The Blue Mosque at night

And then we were back at the Terrace Guesthouse, where I had to sit down and rest before climbing the two flights of winding stairs up to our room.

And that was Sunday, our first day in Istanbul!