Istanbul-An Overview

The last time I was in Istanbul was, shall I say, a less than desirable experience. The temperature reached a sticky and humid 35C. Sleep, already being something I was low on, was not in the slightest helped by the lack of air conditioning in the 'hotel' we were staying at. Whenever I was able to fall into something close to sleep, I was awoken by the call to prayer which echoed the streets from a megaphone outside my window. Thankfully, this time was much of an improvement.

Street in Instanbul

Mosque outside of my hotel

View from my hotel room window

 The weather was fantastic, a cool 26C. Our hotel had AIR CONDITIONING. And for whatever other reasons, my experience was drastically better than the last. We spent two days here, but we did a lot!

Cistern of Constantinople

We visited this underground Cistern during our stay. Ancient plumbing solutions! I was quite impressed with the thoroughness and completion of the excavation. The lighting however, was certainly poor, as speaks the quality of the picture I have.

Egyptian Obelisk

This obelisk sits in front of the Blue Mosque in a central Istanbul square. Apparently, it was brought over from Egypt by boat across the Mediterranean. This is only the top third of the whole Obelisk, the rest of which was left in Egypt due to its massiveness.

Alexander the Great's Sarcophagus

Ionic Greek Column

The two images above were taken at a Greek and Roman Archeological museum in Istanbul. I'm sure there will be plenty more like these to come going into Greece and Rome.

Outside of Museum (don't judge)

Section from Mesopotamian Mural

Cuneiform Inscription

Another Cuneiform Inscription

The four images above were from a Mesopotamian artefact museum. Having studied the Mesopotamians in English this year, I was elated to identify the scripts!

 Unfortunately, I was unable to get any pictures of either the Grand Bazaar or the Bosphorus Boat tour we went on. Also not on this post are pictures from the Chora Museum, the Blue Mosque, or the Hagia Sophia. I'll just say I went slightly trigger happy at those places and they deserve their own post respectively. Görüşürüz!