Sight-seeing

The last two days have been filled with sight-seeing for Rachel and me. Yesterday we spent the morning at the Archaeological Museum. It's amazing to see things that were around 2,000 years before Christ was born. We saw dozens of sarcophagii (the picture is Rachel standing in front of one of the largest), the Tiled Pavilion, and the world's oldest surviving peace treaty, carved in stone in 1269 B.C.
After all of that ancient history, we took a lunch break of bread and roasted corn bought from street vendors. Yum. Then we hit the Basilica Cisterns, begun by Costantine in the first century. The roof is supported by 336 pillars, all beautifully lit in the underground cavern.
That night the three of us went for a walk to find a restaurant for supper. Finding one isn't a problem, since this part of the city definitely caters to tourists. There are hundreds of restaurants within walking distance. You can't walk past a restaurant without someone "encouraging" you to look at their menu and have dinner there (Brian's learning all about this restaurant's menu). One restaurant caught our attention and interest when they offered a free appetizer plate (hey, we're still Dutch even though we're in Turkey!) The food was delicious, as was the traditional apple tea we enjoyed after the meal.
Today Rachel and I took off again for more sight-seeing. I thought we'd hit Topkapi Palace first. This palace was built by the Sultan Mehmet II in the mid 1400's as his residence, seat of government, and college for soldiers. Unfortunately, several dozen tour groups also thought this would be a good time to visit the palace, so we constantly fought crowds of people. Despite this, the palace was incredible, especially the imperial wardrobe, jewel-encrusted dagger, and Spoonmaker's Diamond (all 86 carats of it).
After the palace, we found a place for lunch, then headed to Suleymaniye Mosque. On the way there, we walked through the Grand Bazaar. Or at least one tiny part of the Grand Bazaar (the picture is one of thousands of shops). The Grand Bazaar is one of the world's largest buildings, covering an area of over 3,000,000 square feet. We basically just stayed on one street so we wouldn't get terribly lost (as I'm good at doing). It was quite the place and just a bit overwhelming.
After seeing the mosque, we headed back to the hotel. Our route took us to the outskirts of the Egyptian, or Spice Market. We decided to save this market for another day. So we hopped on the tram and got back to the hotel, tired but full of images of our day. Donna