Big Sauce Tours is back!  Our eldest son John (aka Big Sauce) has been in the background finding and booking activities, day tours and touring companies for the past several months.  Flawlessly executed too yet today he is back planning out full day himself.  

We start the day (after coffee of course) underground checking out the Basilica Cistern water reservoir. The Basilica Cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city. The cistern was built in the 6th century during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. Today it is kept with little water, for public access inside the space.

Istanbul was the home of the Eastern Roman Empire and during that time, Emperor Justinian ordered water storage underground after suspected tampering of Roman open air aqueducts by their enemies. Today it’s a gorgeous stop with stone columns, high arches and LED lights.  

There are two columns with Medusa heads.  In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster, a Gorgon, who was a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair.  Those who gazed upon her face would turn to stone. Luckily, the stone fate does not befall us as we stare upon the Medusa’s face.

Who knows how many treasures lie underground here in Istanbul. It’s an archaeologist’s dream location as so many ancient cultures occupied this land where Asia meets Europe — from Hiiites to Hellenites to Byzantines et al. 

We then head to yet another uber impressive mosque, the Nuruosmaniye mosque which is an 18th-century Ottoman mosque. The dome of the mosque is extremely distinct, and the fourth largest in the city of Istanbul, behind the Hagia Sophia, Süleymaniye Mosque, and Faith Mosque, respectively. The Nuruosmaniye mosque is part of a much larger religious complex, or Külliye, acting as a beacon of culture, religion, education, and support for the neighborhood. It was also the first royal religious mosque of Istanbul that integrated both baroque and neoclassical elements in its construction.

This mosque isn’t under construction and is fairly empty (sign of the times) and its part of a larger complex with a soup kitchen, library and more.  In Istanbul, you’d be hard pressed not to notice one of its 3,000 mosques. 

The Grand Bazaar is Istanbul’s famous marketplace here at the end of the Silk Road. The Grand Bazaar, meaning ‘Covered or Grand Market’ is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world with 61 covered streets and over 4,000 shops on a total area of 30,700 square meters.  The Bazaar attracts between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily and in 2014, it was listed as the world's No 1 most-visited tourist attraction with 91 million annual visitors. Employing over 30,000 people, the Grand Bazaar is often regarded as one of the first shopping malls of the world.

So when we have the world’s largest shopping mall at our disposal, we decide to buy something very uniquely Turkish to remember the place…a suitcase. Exciting eh? 

We have cycled through suitcases and backpacks more than we anticipated. Today we are replacing the Blue Beast (aka our Walmart-on-Wheels) as its zipper has recently decided to split.  We also recently added another bag as a sign of these crazy times.  Our Coronavirus bag stocked full of vitamins, hand sanitizer, masks, et al to prevent or prolong us all getting sick. 

After some appropriate amount of haggling, we secure the suitcase, stop to get Turkish Coffee at a coffee shop in the bazaar, drop off the suitcase at our apartment and head back out to the Galata Tower. The Galata Tower, also known as the Tower of Jesus, is a 70 meter high medieval stone tower sporting a cone-capped cylinder shape that dominates the skyline and offers a panoramic vista of Istanbul's historic peninsula and its environs.  It is one of the oldest towers in the world built in the 6th Century as a lighthouse.

In the late 1600’s, legendary Ottoman aviator Hazerfen Ahmet Celebi flew from the Galata Tower across the Bosporus Straight to the banks of Uskudar with wings he designed himself thus becoming the first person ever to complete a transcontinental flight going from Europe to Asia.  The Ottoman Sultan at the time, Murad IV, at first rewarded him with a sack of gold coins but upon reflection, declared him a scary man capable of doing anything he wishes and banished him to exile in Algeria where he died. 

Next we are supposed to visit the Dolmabahçe Palace where the royal imperial palace was moved in 1856 but we find out its closed on Mondays so it will have to wait for a future return trip since we leave Istanbul tomorrow.

We walk down to the waterfront where we get a late lunch / early dinner at a pizza place.  Yes, not the most authentic local food but after walking for an hour, we just wanted to eat and it was the first place we came across. 

Our last activity of the day is a sunset cruise on the Bosporus Straights.  It’s a nice size boat and sparsely populated.  Besides our group, there are maybe 10 other people onboard a boat that could easily hold 60 people.  Makes keeping our social distancing easier.  

It’s cool getting the tour from the waters perspective as the guide points out both places we’ve visited and those we didn’t.  We see spectacular homes on the waterfront that we are told go from USD $100M+.  Wow, that makes the $10M homes on the Strand in Manhattan Beach seem like a relative bargain.

We get gorgeous pictures of sunset and fill up on snacks and appetizers.  After the sunsets, it gets quite chilly on the river and we pile inside to enjoy the after sunset.