Istanbul; Saturday, 18 December, 2021

My third and final day exploring Istanbul with Semih and we first headed out in the taxi up to the Suleymaniye Mosque. The Mosque is located on the top of a hill overlooking the Bosporus and Golden Horn and is one of the most recognisable buildings in the city. The mosque was commissioned by Suleman the Magnificent and the grounds include the tomb of Suleman and his wife. For over 450 years, until 2019, the mosque was the largest in the city. Inside the mosque is richly decorated.

From the Mosque we drove over the Golden Horn and down to the waterside to visit the Rahmi M Koç Museum, the museum is an interesting collection of transport related exhibits from engines, boats and trains to cars, invalid carriages and bikes. There’s also exhibits of agricultural equipment – but the main collection is dedicated to classic sports cars from the ages. At the time of visiting the museum was also housing a temporary exhibit on childrens dolls, which appeared to have the greatest concentration of creepy and disturbing looking dolls ever assembled!

From the Museum we headed back across the Golden Horn and upstream into the hills overlooking the area where several smaller rivers merge to form the Golden Horn. The hill we visited is called Pierre Loti, after a Frenchman who visited the area in the 19th Century. From this high point there are stunning views back down the Golden Horn all the way to the mouth into the Bosporus, the Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace. We also stopped here for a Turkish coffee before catching the cable car down to the riverside in Eyüp.

Our final mosque visit of the trip was to the Eyüp Sultan Mosque. The mosque itself is pretty no descript, but the ground hold the tomb of the standard-bearer and friend of the Prophet, who is said to have died close to this spot in the 7th century during a siege of Constantinople. After the city finally fell a tomb was built here and is now a site that is venerated by Muslims.

From the Mosque we drove back along the Golden Horn, past some of the remaining remnants of the old Eastern Roman city walls of Constantinople before being dropped off in the Balat district for a walk around both this and the neighbouring Fener neighbourhoods. Until the 1950s these areas were the traditional neighbourhoods for the cities Jewish and Greek populations, but over time the original populations have moved away (in the case of the Greek population through a major citizen exchange with Turkish people living in Greece). In recent years the area has started to become trendy and now is home to a large number of cafes and shops – including the very tasty café we stopped off in for lunch.

After lunch we continued wandering through the Fener district including visiting the street of colourful houses, the imposing Greek Orthodox school perched on top of a hill and then finally the Church of St George, home to the Patriarchate of the Eastern Orthodox religion – effectively the Orthodox equivalent of The Vatican.

The final stop was back in the Balat district at the Bulgarian Orthodox church. The church was built in a very short time frame from prefabricated Iron in the middle of the 19th century. At the time the Bulgarian members of the Orthodox church weren’t happy that all masses were conducted in Greek and had petitioned the Sultan to be allowed to split from the main Orthodox church and set up their own branch, which the Sultan agreed to only on the condition that they had their new church built within three months – hence the need to go for a flat packed church.

After significant restoration work over the last few years the Church is fully open for visiting with an exhibition in the basement of photos from the restoration work showing how badly an iron building located on the flood plane of the Golden Horn in a humid environment can corrode.

The church was the last stop of the tour, and from here I said fond farewell to Semih and thank him for his guiding over the previous three days. As he lived in the opposite direction to my hotel he headed back home from there and the taxi driver took me back to my hotel.

I had a quick freshen up and then headed out to Semih’s final recommendation for dinner – once again a beautiful meal – before heading back to the hotel.