World Cruise Day 117/152 - Istanbul, Turkey - An excursion swing...and a miss

Cruise day: 117/152

Ports days: 55
Sea days: 62
Countries: 20
Continents: 5
Ports: 40

Wow, this morning arrived quickly.  Hardly recovered from our late evening last night, we were up and ready to go on our excursion this morning.  The first sentence in the Panoramic Istanbul excursion description is:

Explore the Asian and European sides of Istanbul on this panoramic drive and enriching tour.

Cool - we'll get to see both sides and cross the continental border.  Silly?  Perhaps.  But that alone was the reason we booked it.  We would also get to...

...visit the magnificent Hagia Sophia, built as a cathedral and later converted into a mosque.  Today this enlightening museum is laden with beautiful mosaics and frescos.

Also cool.  We'll see a museum and enjoy the rest of the tour. (Cue dramatic and tense music) Or so we thought...

Once on the bus, our guide told us the plan, and that plan didn't involve the Asian side.  We asked if we were going to see the Asian side.  He said, "No".  We said the tour description said we would.  He said it didn't.  We showed him it did.  He pointed to the east side of the bay and said, "There it is".  Well, heck - we could have seen that from the ship for free.  We paid for an excursion specifically to do something and that something was not in the tour we paid for. Strike one.

We headed to the first stop at the Hagia Sophia "museum".  He said that women would need head coverings and all women had them, right?  Several women said they did not, including Arlona.  He said it is a mosque and they need head coverings so we would stop so they could buy one.  The tour description said it is a museum, not a mosque.  Long story, short (perhaps too late at this point), two years ago, it was converted back into a mosque.  Nothing in the description indicates that.  So, Arlona (and several other ladies) had to purchase a headcover or forego the visit.  Stike two. But, this strike was partly on us as we missed a portion of the port talk and the port talk did point out that Hagia Sophia was once again a mosque so mosque dress rules would apply.  Still, knowing that, Viking should update their written excursion descriptions that they deliver to the rooms and display in the Viking app. We have some culpability but so does Viking - the strike remains.

Then, there was our guide.  Do you remember Ben Stein as the economics teacher in the movie, Ferris Buehler's Day off?

Our guide made him look like the life of the party.  Monotone and unenthused.  Strike three.

With all that said, here's what we saw and did. This morning started out colder than yesterday at about 45-degrees, but for the most part, the rain held off, so that was an improvement.  In addition, the skies were a little clearer with less haze and low overcast. This means better views of the city.

No matter which way you turn your head in Instanbul, you see a dome or minaret as there are over 3,000 mosques in Istanbul - not many when you consider that with 16M residents, and 99% of them Muslim, that equals more than 5,000 worshipers per mosque

It was a busy morning on the water with traffic of all sizes out and about

Our first glimpse of Hagia Sophia on our drive

We got several views of the city walls.

This is a former prison where you paid for your crimes by spending time there - now it is a Four Seasons Hotel where you spend a boatload of cash to spend a night there

As I said, our first stop was Hagia Sophia. Built in 537AD on the same site as two previous churches that had been destroyed, this building was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly 1,000 years.  When the Ottoman Empire took control of this area, the building was converted into a mosque and the minarets were built.  In the 1930s, it was converted into a museum and that's what we thought we were going to see. But, in 2020, it was converted back into a mosque.

The Blue Mosque sits directly across from Hagia Sophia. Hagia Sophia has four minarets and the Blue Mosque has six.  Every mosque has to have at least one minaret.  Back in the day, the muezzin (the official who proclaims the call to prayer) would climb the stairs to the top of the minaret and sing the adhan (call to prayer).  Today, minarets have a loudspeaker system, and a recorded or live call to prayer is played over the speakers. Our guide said that the number of minarets tells you this:

• 1 minaret - a mosque built with local donations
• 2 minarets - a mosque built by a family
• 4 minarets - a mosque built by a Sultan
• 6 minarets - there is only one mosque like this - the Blue Mosque (however this is false - see below)

The Blue Mosque and its six minarets.

Hagia Sophia with three of its four minarets visible

The line waiting for its 10AM opening

For us, this one blew away the Blue Mosque. Because of its background, there was a mix of Christian and Islamic markings.  It was less crowded, more ornate, and simply more visually interesting.

Because this was originally a cathedral, not a mosque, it wasn't built facing Mecca like every other mosque in the world, so, the carpet has runner-like lines on it aligned so that if you put your toes on the line and face the right way, you're facing Mecca as you should for prayers - these usually square up with the front of the mosque, but not here - they are off-angled - one of us is aligned, the other is backward - you can judge

We hopped back on the bus for the ride over to the Grand Bazaar.

Sweet shops are everywhere

Istanbul's Orient Express train station where the Paris-Istanbul luxury Orient Express railway stopped

When we arrived in the bazaar area, our guide took us to an "honest" shop where we were served pomegranate tea and sampled Turkish Delight candy.  The shop had an amazing display of spices and goodies, as did many other shops in the area.

Remember the photo of the painting of a corn vendor that I posted in yesterday's blog?  Here's an actual stand outside the Grand Bazaar.

We skipped the Grand Bazaar and since it wasn't raining (yet), we opted to just walk around the streets near the Grand Bazaar and window shop.  As we were walking, we found this - the tomb and cemetery of Mahmud II -  and walked through.  

The dome of the tomb peeking out over refurbishing fencing

A peek inside the tomb- we didn't venture in as we didn't feel like taking off our shoes, so we stopped before stepping on the rug

After 90-minutes of wandering, the rain started falling.  Lucky for us, that was about the time our bus arrived to take us back to the ship.

The rain ended and the skies cleared a bit, and that allowed me to grab a couple shots 

Hagia Sophia on the left, Blue Mosque on the right, one of the zillions of ferries right down in front

Hagia Sophia

Blue Mosque

I was also able to catch a view of the 1,926-foot Çamlıca Radio & TV Tower, on the Asian side.  For the record, this was from the ship, not on a tour.

Remember when I said that even though our guide said that the Blue Mosque was the only mosque with six minarets, that it wasn't true?  Let's count together, shall we? 1-2-3-4-5-6 - hey - six minarets!  But...this isn't the Blue Mosque!  This is the Çamlıca Mosque, also located on the Asian side, and again, photographed from our balcony on the ship, not on an excursion.  This was completed in 2019 and has 70 domes and six minarets. It has a stated capacity of 63,000 people!

Our onboard time was 5PM and we expected to depart shortly after, but we were preempted by this guy.

The Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) Jade was docked right behind us today and jumped out ahead of us just before 6PM.  We're not too worried as we have plenty of time to get to Greece with a sea day on the schedule for tomorrow. We pushed off at about 6:15PM.

We caught one last view of the Çamlıca Mosque and the Çamlıca Radio & TV Tower on our way out of Istanbul.

We are on our way southwest, back through the Dardanelles, and back to the Mediterranean, en route to Athens (Piraeus), Greece on Thursday for a two-day stay.

Dinner tonight had a Turkish theme with kebabs and other Turkish-influenced food.  Of course, I focused on the amazing desserts with several baklava varieties and a Turkish variety of cotton candy that was amazing.

Was today a loss?  Of course not.  We find a way to enjoy ourselves, and we did enjoy what we did see, even if that wasn't what we expected to see and paid to see.  We did raise the issue with Viking.  We also checked out the Istanbul port talk where they specifically stated that the excursion would explore the Asian and European sides of the city, just like the written excursion description. Viking doesn't see it the same way we do.  The headcover falls on us, as while the description said Hagia Sophia is a museum, they did correct that in the port talk.  The content of the excursion, however, falls 100% on Viking for misrepresenting what we would see/do and that content is why we paid for this excursion. With all the things that Viking absolutely excels at, they failed miserably on this one.  Communication from Viking has been one weak spot for this entire cruise and this is a prime example of it.  The other thing is that when you cruise Viking, as far as shore excursions go, it is caveat emptor - buyer beware.  Do not place any faith in the descriptions of a shore excursion.  Ask questions, get verification, ask again, and still plan on not getting what is described.  It's too bad because many times, they provide amazing experiences.  The one we had today tells us that it is a crap shoot.

We are looking forward to a sea day tomorrow.