5th April I decided to try the train and headed into the Spice Bazaar. The train was nice and easy with a quick and traffic free run to the end of the line. The station is close to the Spice Bazaar and the New Mosque (Yeni Camii).
The New Mosque (Yeni Camii)
Similar to the Grand Bazaar the Spice Bazaar is a fabulous tourist attraction with unsurprisingly several spice, Turkish delight and tea stores and additional Turkish gift stores.
After picking up a 100gm green/jasmine tea and 100gm mixture (called Love Tea) I was ready to get to Topkapi Palace.
Topkapi Palace has an amazing vantage point overlooking Istanbul, The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus Strait and the Golden Horn. Outside the walls of Topkapi Palace are the Hippodrome of Constantinople (Sultan Ahmet Square) the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) and Hagia Sofia. All very impressive on the way to Topkapi Palace.
Hippodrome of Constantinople (Sultan Ahmet Square)
Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque)
Inside the gates of Topkapi Palace it is very impressive with great courtyards, lush vegetation and a balance of quite and popular/busy spaces. There are a range of pavilions, halls, dormitories, towers and courtyards having had various roles, functions or purposes in the past.
It took this couple more than 15mins to get a clear shot for a picture they were happy with - I was happy watching and taking their picture.
Detail within the Imperial Divan
There is so much to see throughout Topkapi Palace that it would be possible to be there for hours patiently following a train of people around from one labelled item to the next hoping to get a chance to read the information and see the piece before being pushed onwards. After seeing the 86carat Spoonmaker's Diamond which is rumoured to have been found by a poor fisherman in the rubbish on the shore and sold for the sum of three spoons to a jeweller…….I was ready to head towards the exit.
On the way back towards the train I was spotted by a woman who called out across the street - "Hello Australian?" I asked how she could tell. I walked over and she invited me into the Elegance Rug Gallery where she had been sitting outside with here husband. After we shared stories she is married to an Australian and lives between Istanbul and Sydney and is involved in the rug trade…… I advised I wasn't really in the market since I was on a motorbike trip and didn't have room unless it was small. We sat, we talked, we had tea and just as I was about to leave, openly letting her know I would not be buying anything, the owner with the BMW motorbike outside became available to talk.
Out came the rug pictured below, all 39,600Euro of it. This was smaller than the one I had seen earlier in the Grand Bazaar for 350Euro and the quoted price is more than 100x the price. It must be good! This one has a ticket attached classifying it as an antiquity, is 400 double knots/cm2 and is more than 30yrs old. Feels amazing and looks great with the light behind it - beautiful.
Turkish Silk Rug - 39,600Euro (30cm x 25.2cm - 400double knots/cm2 - 30+yrs old)
I must have sounded impressed and excited enough since I was then invited upstairs to sit down and discuss rugs, their history and quality, view some older and finer examples and talk some more. They had a proposition for me too….They would let me take this little beauty off their hands for just the price of the taxes if they could use my parent's address to deliver two rugs back to Australia for another excited customer. Apparently there is a limit of one rug per customer for the Turkish authorities who do not want to see too many of their antiquities leave the country and I could help out this unseen customer have two - if I paid the 18% taxes on a 39,600Euro rug………….at around 7,000Euro it was clearly a fabulous bargain……….maybe too good to be true……..I gracefully declined their offer and wished them the best since I had learnt a lot about rugs. Perhaps I will see them another day and we'll see if I can help.
Although I was still trying to get back to the train station I stopped off for a well earned break at the Ottoman Legacy Hotel. The roof-top bar was inside the building's roof and not actually outside. There were two staff and three customers. When I asked the staff if this was the roof-top bar and commented that it was going off the fella at the bar realised I was Australian - he was too. He was in Istanbul on a visa run from Dubai since the company he was sub-contracting too thought that was better than organising and paying residency. He rides a Kawasaki Ninja and dreams of taking one of his boys riding and camping up the coast of Queensland. We talked about my plans over a few beers and he expressed his good wishes for me and covered the bill.
Thanks mate.
The New Mosque (Yeni Camii) at night.