We seem to still have a lot of organizing to do for
Australia. Organizing paperwork for two concurrent passports for us
so we can apply for them the day we arrive.
At midday we went out and had lunch and walked. As we walked into the Hippodrome (Sultan Ahmet Parki) it was barricaded and we were searched. We discovered at the other end there was a a group of people and the occasional tank with water cannon. We exited quickly.
We visited Ayasofya Muzesi. The sheer size of the place and the fact that it had been a church, then a mosque, and now a museum was quiet astounding. Marble slabs covered the floor, and the walls were decorated by different colored marble from different places within the Ottoman empire.
The Cistern which I remembered well
and have told john about. Now a days you can walk through the cistern
on a board walk and see the Medusa head that is a base for two of
the pillars at the far end. . The cistern was obviously built out
of plundered materials. Well worth seeing again.A carved pillar called the weeping pillar as it is always wet.
