Travels: Day 5: Chora Church & City Walls

After breakfast, we grabbed a taxi and headed to Chora Church. Like the Hagia Sophia, it was a church, converted to a mosque, converted to a museum. It is known for its beautiful Byzantine mosaics.

We got there a bit early, before it opened, so we sat in a cafe and read a bit about what we were about to see:

We're not sure what this cat did to earn the medal he was wearing:

Here is the entrance to the church; pretty unassuming:

Cats in the courtyard:

The outside of the church:

And the inside, with views of some of the mosaics:

Me, in the interior:

After leaving the church, we walked around the area a bit and explored the city walls that once kept Istanbul safe.

We also saw a rare Turkish Van cat, though we didn't realize it at the time and didn't get a picture! She was all white and had one blue eye and one green. She was so striking and beautiful, but gone before we thought to take her picture. The rest of the trip, we closely examined the eyes of the white cats we ran across, but didn't find another van.

The steps to get to the top of the walls was so steep, we didn't even realize it was a staircase at first!

I made it!

To try to give the idea of exactly how steep it was, here's a view looking down:

We were rewarded with views of the city, in my opinion superior to those we saw yesterday at the Galata Tower, and free!

The walkway to reach the tower was treacherous; several feet wide, no handrail, and a steep drop down on both sides!

Standing on 5th century walls, watching 21st century traffic file by:

Here's another view of the crossing to get back to the steep staircase that will lead us back to the ground:

Brian went down first, and then me. A bit more difficult than going up!

Near the city walls was an old cemetery, so we wandered around a bit:

We headed in the direction of our next destination with the intention of grabbing a cab. But, before we got there, we ran across some chickens in a park:

This duck and chicken were following each other around, inseparable:

We sat down in the park to enjoy watching the chickens a bit, and to plan our next move:

We went to the Bulgarian church, which was constructed in Vienna out of metal and brought, prefabricated, to Istanbul.

The outside:

The inside:

A scary tomb in the courtyard:

We then caught a cab that dropped us off at the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent.

Sadly, much of it was inaccessible due to renovations. In the courtyard, I pet a cat:

This picture was taken in one of the smaller structures; the burial place of Suleyman and many of his children:

We ate lunch at an outdoor cafe popular with students (this is close to Istanbul University).

Our guidebook said not to miss their pumpkin dessert, so we tried it:

After lunch, we headed for a Turkish bath, known as hamam. This is the outside; no pictures were taken inside:

As expected, it was ridiculously hot in the hamam, so we needed to drink a lot of water to rehydrate ourselves:

We did enjoy the hamam, and on our next visit to Turkey, will do one the night we get there, to help us recover from the plane ride.

We walked around a bit, hitting the Spice Bazaar, and doing some people watching.

I couldn't help but take a picture of this scene unfolding in front of us. We're right on a busy street, but a wrought iron fence separates the plaza from the busy street. A man got dropped off in a taxi, along with many garbage bags! We sat watching for 10 minutes or so, but nothing happened and then we went on our way. How bizarre!

Where to, next?

We visited another mosque, of which we didn't take any pictures, and then went to a cafe for a beer.

We were given a tiny treasure chest into which we placed our payment:

While walking around and trying to decide where to eat dinner, we came across a barbershop and Brian decided to get a shave. In an effort to pack light, he hadn't brought a razor with him and was just planning on growing facial hair on the trip, but his plans suddenly changed.

Before: