Istanbul, Day Two

Only one more morning in Istanbul, as the cruise ship was due to depart at noon. We went to the sixteenth-century Mosque of Sulayman the Magnificent and the fourth-century CE Chora Church, with its fourteenth-century mosaics. Again Ron could not enter the mosque and had to sit outside, but other group members were with him this time, and they were all joined by a friendly tomcat who purred his way from one lap to another. Sulayman's mosque, built a century earlier than the Blue Mosque, was even plainer in appearence, though immensely large, and did contain a huge pair of candlesticks brought by the sultan from Hungary. After the visit, we ran into a considerable traffic jam that made it impossible for the tour bus to pick us up and had to make our way down a busy street and get onto the bus illegally parked in a traffic zone. Traffic in Istanbul is worse than that in Athens or Rome and approaches conditions in Naples, which is saying something. Our trek to the bus did give me the opportunity to snap a typical street scene (right). The Chora, dating from the fourth century CE, contains Byzantine frescos painted shortly before the fall of the city. They were whitewashed under Ottoman occupation and restored when the church was converted into a museum again. Conditions were difficult, as usual, for indoor photography. On the other hand, I did get a nice picture of the exterior, as well as one of three half-grown cats sleeping on the surrounding grass. I also purchased a gorgeous Pashima scarf for ten lira ($1.50), though I'll have to put off wearing it until the next time I visit a mosque. Lunch was especially fun yesterday. We sat outside and feasted on calimari and scallops while the ship pulled out of Istanbul harbor. We broke our rule and had a second glass of wine with lunch, then retired for a nap. In the afternoon we heard Bill Murray lecture on Xerxes' invasion of Greece and Michael Higgins, a British geologist from the University of Quebec, explain the conditions that led to the silting up of Ephesus' harbor and the abandonment of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. His theory that the original form of the goddess was a meteorite and that her unusual iconography reflects her extraterrestrial origins didn't seem to convince many people. (He was pretty diffident about it himself.) I think the clue to her unusual costume lies in the resemblance between it and that of the cult statue of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias. Both goddesses must be avatars of older Near Eastern divinities whose costume reflects their function as fertility powers. Instructions for final disembarkation reminded us that tomorrow will be our last day aboard ship, so I will dedicate the concluding entry to summing up my impressions.