Breakfast is impressive.
We are taking the day to look around the city and it pains me to admit it. I refuse to queue. I have never waited in line for any length of time, got to the front, and thought it was worth it.
The last time we were in a tourist line was in Porto to see the Livreria Lello bookstore and it was not worth it. It won’t happen again.
We had two things to see, The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, imaginatively named The Blue Mosque by visitors, and the Hagia Sophia.
We are constantly approached by touts. Friendly people who just want to be friendly until you answer their question of where you are from, and then you can’t get rid of them. I try and be polite, but it wears thin. They all want to be your friend and show you around for a not small fee, except this guy…
‘Where are you from’
Ignore.
‘I don’t want to show you around, I want to sell you my carpets’
The only honest tout in Istanbul.
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is teeming with tourists. Thousands. Groups of five and groups of a hundred following people with flags. You can hardly move inside. The noise and the sheer volume of humans are stifling.
It has occurred to us both that our trip through Europe in 2022 was timed perfectly. On the tail end of COVID, we moved unrestricted but there were no crowds. Travel had not ramped back up. I fear we will never experience travel like that again.
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is stunning. It eclipses the Sharjah Mosque, both in architectural beauty and name originality, unless you consider it is called The Blue Mosque, so possibly equal in the name stakes. Although Shell tells me the carpet in the Sharjah Mosque is softer. I defer to her on all things tactile.
We head to the Hagia Sophia and the lineup is hundreds deep and growing. We take a photo of the outside and move on.
We wander the city and find a few bazaars which are interesting. It is hard to just look at the stalls, the hawkers want to make a sale and we have no intention of buying anything. We have an aversion to ‘stuff’.
We find a traditional school that teaches calligraphy and Islamic studies among other subjects. There is a poster showing the lineage of both the Prophet Mohammad and Jesus all the way back to Adam and Eve. I have to say, as a non-believer, Mohammad seems to have better genetics. Maybe it is the Virgin Mary part that makes Jesus a bit suspect in the family tree? Noah is there, and so is Moses. One big happy family, but not Gaza.
Shell finds a cemetery and we have to go in. She has a fascination with tombs and the like. There are crypts dating back to the 1100s. I think about the notion of legacy and how I will be remembered. No one will remember me, this is a simple fact. It is only a matter of time before everyone is forgotten. If not ten years, one hundred, if not one hundred, a thousand, if not a thousand, ten thousand. No one will remember.
We head home and get ready for dinner. A rooftop deal that specialises in seafood. Under the skyline of the Blue Mosque and the hypnotic sound of the Marmara Sea, it occurs to me it does not really matter if you are remembered. What matters is how you live your very brief existence, that you make the most of every second, because life is a gift, and to waste it is absolutely tragic.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Mark Twain
The fish is delicious.