Istanbul. September 14

Today we headed back over the bridge to explore more of the old city. We began at the Spice Market, which is just over the Galata Bridge. We preferred this market in comparison to its more famous brother the Grand Bazaar, as it sold more of what you would expect in a Turkish market. There were piles of spices, baklava and other sweets, teas, Turkish hamam towels and other Turkish wares.
Once we had finished here, we headed to the bus terminal to catch a public bus to the edge of the Old City, where some of the walls of Constantinople stand.

When we got to our stop in Edirnkapi, we first headed for Chora Museum, which was a byzantine church that belonged to an ancient Roman complex of the Chora (translating to ‘country’ in Greek, as it was outside the city walls) monastery.  The church is dedicated to Jesus and the walls and roof are covered in incredible paintings and mosaics. The main, central room, was under renovation, but the rest was still amazing to see.  The monastery has been around since the 4th century, but the renovations to the church, which we can see today, were made in 1321. In 1453 Mehmed II the Conqueror, conquered Istanbul and the church was converted into a mosque and the mosaics hidden behind wooden shutters.
So basically, it’s pretty old.

We walked around the corner to the walls of Constantinople and climbed some stairs in the hope we could get up to a lookout we had seen. Unfortunately, this only took us to a lower level where if you were brave and stupid, you could climb a very precarious, very steep and very crumbly stone ladder/staircase up to the higher level. We decided not to do this, as the level we were standing on was covered in shards of glass and broken bottles and definitely did not want to fall onto this. So we stayed on this level taking in the weird scene of people trying to climb the death ladder, while some local ladies sat on the ground preparing wool (or cotton?) for what we assume was weaving.

After this we headed back to the bus stop and to our side of the bridge. We walked to Istiklal Avenue and were seduced by Shake Shack where we had some killer burgers and thick shakes. We went home after this to book accommodation for the rest of Turkey, which took quite a long time.
For dinner we headed back to Istiklal to get ourselves some famous ‘Kumpir’. So pretty much, it’s a huge charcoal fire baked potato, which has its innards mashed up with a giant lump of butter and cheese, then topped with your choice of traditional toppings. It’s seriously the best baked potato we will ever have, ever. We took them home to eat and had a joyful feast.

Love A&E