Very aggressive taxi ride from airport. Traffic a very bad problem here.
Sura Hagia Sophia Hotel. Located on a very narrow street, so the taxi had to back in.
The building itself is old and pretty. But recent interior renovations are very trendy, with dark shiny surfaces, indirect lighting, and lots of mirrors. (Just how many copies of oneself on the toilet does one want to see?)
This stuff will look old pretty fast.
Out our window, Ayasofia (Hagia Sophia):
We're well located near the old stuff. On the way to dinner, we found the Million Stone. It was excavated around 1967 and was a mile post that marked the hub of the roads that went to the rest on the Byzantine Empire. It was installed by Constantine in the fourth century, CE, when the capital was moved here from Rome, and was meant to emulate the Milarium Aureum in Rome.
Dinner at Matbah, a very nice place that reproduces historical Ottoman palace recipes. The date of many of the recipes is on the menu. The concept is interesting and fun and the execution excellent. Grape Leaves with sour cherries and chicken stew with apricots, grapes, and almonds, flavored with honey and cinnamon, and baklava. Unfortunately, they do not sell a cookbook.
April 24. Slept in; took laundry down the street to save money. Walking to the taxi stand, we passed a bookstore with this in the front window.
The author is a Marxist-turned-Islamist and is prominent enough to get a wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0smet_%C3%96zel The google translation comes out "Note of Being a Jew," a long poem The book cover has it right. (Google translations are at best proximate and they cannot come close to doing poetry. link ) This looks interesting; maybe we'll find someone to help understand it.
Anyway, we enjoyed a visit to the Chora Museum. It is the surviving part of a former monastery, just outside the old city walls, the former Church of the Holy Savior. Its Byzantine frescoes and mosaics are deservedly renowned. The mosaics relate to the lives of Mary and Jesus.
The dormition:
Mary, Jesus and ancestors?
Fresco of the judgment with Christ giving a hand up to Adam and Eve.
Samezen for dinner. Mixed meat platter. Huge (9"x18") puffy lavash. Picture in future post.
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