Tour - Day 3 - Istanbul - Bolu

At about 6:00 a.m. a guy rattled our door, the door opened and he walked into our room. We chased him out and called the desk - he was drunk and in the wrong room. It was a little disconcerting that he could just shake the door and have it open. Just as well we're leaving that hotel. After breakfast, we took the tram to Sultanahmet and booked a hotel for when we return. Then we walked to the mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent, who was the 10th sultan of the Ottoman empire.

When muslims pray they must face the direction of Mecca, so mosques are aligned that way. You can see in the picture below how the carpet has sections showing where people are to kneel. In the mosques that used to be churches, the building is often not oriented in the correct way, so there is always a niche (can't remember what they call it) showing the direction of Mecca.

He ruled from 1520-1566 - the longest of any sultan. His reign was the Golden Age when the Ottoman Empire was the world’s greatest power when one third of the world’s population lived under the Ottoman flag. Turkish people called him Suleyman the Law-Giver because he codified Ottoman law. He realized that different regions and different peoples needed different laws. His biggest weakness was a woman. He fell in love with one of his slave consorts, Roxelana, was convinced by her to marry her, and she proceeded to have Suleyman murder several people who would have stood in the way of her son becoming sultan one day.

We left Istanbul about 1:00 and drove over the big bridge across the Bosphorus to Asia. We drove for awhile in the outskirts of Istanbul with apartments and industry.

We drove for a long time along a bay of the Sea of Marmara, and then through a valley with lots and lots of rows and rows of tall skinny trees- Jon called them toothpick trees because they are raised for their wood to make toothpicks, pencils and matches. We stopped at a toll plaza for lunch. At the lunch stop, they had a section where you could buy every kind of nut, dried fruit, rice, beans, lentils, many types of raisins, all by the kilo. I wish they had a store like that in Memphis. I bought some tangerines and they were the most juicy delicious tangerines I’ve had in ages. Next time I see some I will buy more.

We arrived at Bolu about 4:30. We are in the mountains (like the Smokies, not the Rockies), there is a little snow here and there. Our hotel is quite fancy with an indoor pool, a sauna, a Turkish bath, a golf course, a tennis court and who knows what else. We have a great little balcony with a view of pine trees but it’s cold here (well, probably about 30) so we don’t really want to sit outside. Armando and Fred went for a swim before dinner.