If its Tuesday it must be... where are we?

If it is Tuesday it must be Istanbul. Or it is Wednesday? Well today I forgot what day of the week it was, but I did know that I was in Istanbul. Yesterday we went to the Topkapi Palace which has this amazing exhibit of jewels. The Topkapi dagger, featured in the movie Topkapi which we will all have to rush out to rent, was particularly amazing with three egg sized cabachon emeralds so green it did not look like anything you had ever seen. That was preceded by a large coffer of emeralds of the same size. Then came the rather "boring" (according to our guide because of the emerald cut) 55 carat diamond, then the rather spectacular 86 carat diamond (with a brilliant cut).

Okay. We also saw Moses' rod, St. John the Baptist's arm surrounded by a gold case, and other relics. Things wars have been fought over. You can really imagine those crusaders charging through here. Then we went to St. Sophia which was the largest building at the time it was built as a church (I think). It is now a beautiful museum/monument. Today we went to the Blue Mosque (pictured). It is still a mosque, so we had to take our shoes off. We were not there during a prayer time.

One of the most striking things about Turkey is that it is a secular government, not religious, and according to our guide most of the citizens are not practicing (or strictly practicing) Moslems. So there was not a rush of men to the mosque when the time of prayers were called.

We drove across the bridge to Asia, just for the view back toward the old part of the city, and to be able to say we had been to Asia. Fun day.

Oh yes, and the bazaar. Well, more later.