On our first day in Istanbul we needed to stay awake after our late-night flight and early-morning arrival. So we decided to walk from our flat down to the main tourist area, Sultanahmet. This is where many of Istanbul’s most famous monuments are, including the Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, and Hagia Sophia. It was a pleasant walk, about 40 minutes, and it gave us a chance to familiarise ourselves with our neighbourhood.
We had a little foretaste of what we might see on our walk there, when we ran into the Column of Constantine, erected by that emperor around 328 CE. It’s the oldest Constantinian monument in Istanbul. It originally had on top a statue of Constantine as the god Apollo. That, along with the top three cylinders, disappeared in a storm in 1106. A later emperor put a cross on top, but the Ottomans took that down some time after 1453. Despite its very worn condition, it is still impressive in its height and proportions: originally about 50 metres (164 feet) high, it is now ‘only’ 35 metres (114 feet). Today the column is mainly a home to pigeons.
But on to Sultanahmet. As you would expect, there were thousands of tourists there, Turkish ones as well as foreigners, so we dived right in. We started at the Hippodrome, or as everybody calls it, Sultanahmet Square. The word is Greek for ‘horse-racing course’, and that is exactly what it once was: a long u-shaped track for racing chariots, à la Ben-Hur. The horses and the track are long gone, and the vast space is now surrounded by museums on two sides.
A few striking monuments punctuate the central part of the square. (This would have been the ‘spine’ of the racecourse at the end of which the horses turned.) Most conspicuous here is an Egyptian obelisk, rising some 25 metres (83 feet) and brought to Constantinople (as it then was) by Theodosius the Great in 390. This draws most people’s attention, and there are many guides explaining what the hieroglyphs on the obelisk say. Who knows, some of them might even get it right!
Down from the obelisk is a twisted column of bronze of some height. Because of its advanced age, it’s lower than ground level and you can look down towards the base. It draws mainly curious stares from onlookers, but it was the one thing that John most wanted to see in the area. And this column is the base of a dedication to the god Apollo at Delphi, in 478 BCE. The Greek states who had fought and defeated the Persians in the campaigns of 480 and 479 dedicated it.
On its top there were once three snakes holding a golden tripod and cauldron. The tripod and cauldron were lost early on, and over the years more and more of the top disappeared. All that remains now is a stray snake head in the archaeological museum (more on that in a later post). How did it get here? Constantine brought it in 324 to adorn his new capital city. Like you do when you’ve conquered a bunch of stuff.
Far more famous and far more frequented are the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. Sultan Ahmed I built the Blue Mosque 1609 to 1616; its official name is the Sultanahmet Mosque. (He chose as the site for the mosque what had been the imperial residence of the Byzantine emperors. The graceful arches, the amazing decoration with tens of thousands of ceramic tiles, the soaring sense of space within all combine to make it a magnificent experience. The ‘Blue’ in its name comes from the stunning tilework inside. Just at the moment, the interior is being renovated, but we think we can get some good pictures nonetheless.
Hagia Sophia was originally a Christian basilica, built by the emperor Justinian I from 532 to 537. It is one of the most famous buildings in the world, and deservedly so. It’s so spectacular that it deserves its own post, so we’ll say more about it in the future.
All of this great stuff is located around a lovely little park, including the above fountain. Full marks to Istanbul, and to Sultanahmet, for packing in a bunch of amazing stuff in a very small space!
