What have the Romans ever done for us...

Another very quick post. This time because I am simply buggered after a rather long walk today.

This morning I caught ferry up the Golden Horn to where the Constantine's Wall meets the water near Ayvansaray with the intention of seeing the walls of old Constantinople. I was not disappointed. So many people advised that the walls were in bad repair and in a bad part of town, that my expectations were pretty low.

How wrong was I?

Yep, that end of town is poor, possibly even dangerous after dark... but not during a sunny Saturday afternoon. In fact, I had my lunch in a little cafe that used the nooks on the inside of the wall for seating, and everyone was very friendly.

But the walls! Against all expectation it is actually very possible to climb to the top and literally walk along them. With a bit of patience and observation, I actually found a point where I was able to scale the wall up to an almost entirely intact parapet. I mean... how well preserved is a few kilometers of obsolete millenia-old military wall supposed to be? Compared to Rome's walls or Hadrian's Wall, these were in sterling shape.

I'll let the photos (poorly) tell the rest of the story, but honestly, this has been the highlight of the Istanbul leg of this trip, and right up there with everything Rome had to offer.

Anyway, buoyed by this little surprise, I thought it would be a grand idea to walk back into town following the road from the first gatehouse I came to. Well... that proved a longer walk that I thought after I tried and failed to find the entire neighborhood of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchy, and then proceeded back via Valen's Aqueduct (which DID seem sadly neglected), the Suleymaniye Mosque and another pass at the Grand Bazaar.

Finally back at the hotel, I rounded out the afternoon with a couple of beers and a dinner of grilled chicken wings on the terrace.

I'm really enjoying Istanbul. It has its ups and downs, but then it is a complex place. I'm finding that its best to forget the reviews and the "must see" items, and just go see the things I've read about.

Just outside the walls. Okay, that park has evidence of some pretty interesting night life, but honestly not more so than many parks in sunny Brissie. But anyway, even along this stretch the condition of the walls exceeded my expectations.

The parapet I ended up climbing. There was a police station at the foot where I found my entrance point, which no doubt accounted for the generally good condition and the national flag flying from the top. Also, possibly for the rather graphic spray painted signs on the paving warning of robberies and worse. But I saw no-one except for a small tour group that climbed the wall a bit further down from me.

The view from the parapet back to Sultanahmet. I think that mosque you can see is the Suleymaniye mosque that features in some photos later on. 

Another fine image of the dust that is still on my sensor, with a length of wall in the background. This is looking north a long the wall toward the Golden Horn. In the next couple of days, I'm going to take a trip up to that highrise business district.

That's the stone ladder one climbs to get to the rampart. The current level is already a storey above ground level.

The cafe where I had lunch and a Turkish tea. Again, this was a poor neighborhood, bu not the poor and nasty kind. At least not on a Saturday afternoon. There was plenty of foot traffic, plenty of greetings and the proprietor taught me how to say please and thank you in Turkish, which I have already forgotten. I'm such a wretched monolinguist. 

And the wall from street level.

Valen's Aqueduct. this was about half way back to the hotel, not counting the Fener detour, and I was a bit weary. I probably wasn't alive to the magnificence of this aqueduct just standing in someone's front yard.

Looking north from the terrace of the Suleymaniye mosque.

Courtyard of the Suleymaniye mosque. Again, the shear perfection of these buildings actually belies the scale and complexity of them when you are actually experiencing them. They are monuments to magnificent austerity... but having seen a few now, I just can't connect with them. I guess I'm more of an incense, textures and shadow type of guy.