20 - 21 June

Wednesday 20 June 0700 Maramara Sea  Istanbul, Turkey We have travelled 4299  Nm   from Dubai and we have to travel 2.6 Nm to our next Port of Istanbul.  Heading 337.9 Temperature on desk is 22 degrees.  Speeding  knots.  Wind speed 25.1 knots across the deck.

Currency – Turkish Lira

We arrived in Turkey two hours ahead of time and the people who were going ashore by themselves were streaming down the gangplank at 0700 hours.  We were not meeting our tour guide until 0900, so we had a leisurely breakfast before our busy day.

Istanbul sits on both the Continents of Asia and Europe, starting of as a small commercial centre by the Greeks. Three great structures dominate the city: the Imperial Place, the Church of St. Sophia and the Hippodrome. 

The Hippodrome was our first stop.  It was originally a colossal stadium for chariot race, able to hold 100,000 spectators.  There is an Obelisk which was taken from the Temple of Karnak in Egypt where we were last Wednesday.

The Blue Mosque takes its name from the 20,000 blue Iznik tiles through out this magnificent building.  Minarets are the towers that surround a mosque from where the call to prayer is broadcast from; this mosque has 6 huge ones.  We had to take our shoes off as usual and we filed through the building.  The pictures do not do justice. 

St. Sophia the Church of Holy Wisdom was built by the Emperor Justinian in the year 1313 is a breathtaking building with a massive dome and an interior decorated with marble, precious stones and pillars from Ephesus.  I know I keep using the words ‘breath taking’ but that is exactly what it is.  You look up, look around and down and you are blown away with the beauty and the question of ‘how did they build this’?

Our guide told us that they build large false interior walls which enabled them to work on the huge dome and when the exterior was finished, they removed the inner walls and left this huge construction.  Fantastic work of engineering. Where did Romans get the earth from, right next door and what did they do with the hole?  They build an underground cistern (reservoir) which provided the water required for the city at the time, it was cold and dark and full of water and fish.  The ceiling was held up by 336 Corinthian columns, the guide was telling us that a request for old columns which were no longer need from other Roman cities.  This was the first type of recycling in the world; the end result was a total mismatch of columns.  The Romans were not interested in Greek mythology and so when given a column dedicated to the God Medusas they stuck it upside down in the ground.

Shopping Time.  We went to the Grand Bazaar which is the largest undercover markets in the world with over 4,000 shops and its own school, mosque, post office, bank and police station. We were given two hours to look around.  Wow! The shops were small but neat and there was heaps of room to walk around.  Trinkets, silver and gold, rugs and leather goods were all there, bargaining was not welcome.  I found it very expensive.  I only bought a small purse and some Turkish Delight.

The two hours went very fast and we were soon all gathered to go to the last tourist sight for the Day.

Darn- my camera has gone flat again and my spare camera is back on the ship.
  

The Topkapi Palace Museum and Palace Harem. Topkapi is a name which means ‘common gate’.  It is a lavishly decorated and the home of a remarkable art collection from the most exotic parts of the world, including Chinese porcelain and jade and some huge gems.  The largest gem is a Topkapi emerald which is bigger than an emu egg.  The emerald hung just above the seated Emperor’s head and the concubines had to try to touch the emerald and therefore placing all their assets in front of the Emperor.  This was their only opportunity of attracting the Emperor’s attention.  The girls were selected when they were 3 years of age and educated until they were presented to the Emperor when they were 18 years old and they have only 7 years before they are sent out of the palace.

We paid additional money to actually go into the harem and see where the 1^st son of the Emperor spent the first 11 years of his life locked  in two rooms until his father took him away to live with the men.  The poor ladies were surrounded by 400 eunuchs, 30,000 soldiers and they may never meet the Emperor.  Once again, great place to visit.

We boarded the bus, a lot of the passengers were tired and hot as we had walked kilometres and ready for something cold to drink and nice to eat.  I went up to the buffet and had some lovely lamb chops and salad.

Thursday 21 June 0600  The ship sailed into ANZAC Cove at 0600 this morning and to celebrate this, the ship held a Dawn Service to commemorate the Gallipoli landing.  It was a professional presentation with hymns, a Catholic priest, wreath laying and the ode.  We were given rosemary to wear and it was a very heart wrenching time, I cried my eyes out.  I have mentioned before that I am in the ship’s choir and we sang the hymns and the Australian and New Zealand anthems.  I have taken a heap of picture a lot of that area was flat and accessible compared to the landing we had to take.  The majority of the passengers are Aussies and then New Zealander’s so you can imagine the feeling on board.