Constantinople (Istanbul) - 2019. Byzantium in 7 days.
I mainly describe the technical side of the trip: routes by day, schedules and subtleties of transport, linking to objects for MAPS. ME.
The purpose of the 7-day trip is to travel in the footsteps of the Orthodox monuments of Constantinople (not a pilgrimage mission, but the simple interest of a Russian person in the origins of a spiritual culture close to us).
Means - independent movement on foot and by public transport according to the points previously set in the MAPS. ME navigator. For blondes: download a map of Istanbul in advance to work offline. All the details are in the internet and comments to the objects in MAPS. ME.
April 7.
Flight from Moscow SU-2136 (10:00 - 13:45) is optimal in time.
Transfer to the hotel - order on the KIWI-taxi website. The driver meets you right at the exit from the baggage claim hall. Those who meet - the crowd. I printed at home in full A4 sheet: “KIWI-taxi”, my last name and the name of the hotel. It's easier to meet this way.
Booked PEYK Hotel. Normal: the room is quite comfortable, clean, breakfasts are average, but tolerable, the staff is NOT Russian-speaking. The main thing is that it is optimal in terms of location: to the center (Sultanahmet) - 10 minutes. on foot, to the stop of the main transport - tram T1 - 5 min. On the same small 5-beam square: Feodosia Cistern, 4-5 more hotels, 2 restaurants. Moreover, the restaurants are inexpensive, preferred by the local population (the best choice in each country).
Evening - a walk around the neighborhood: Sultanahmet Square, the Blue Mosque, dinner in the nearest alley (a sea of u200bu200b"tourist" eateries).
April 8.
Hiking route, everything is nearby.
The Blue Mosque. There is no impression from the interior, the Muslim decor is the inexpressible squalor of tiles. It is enough to look outside.
The former Hagia Sophia, of which only the walls and a few remains of mosaics have survived. The remains are magnificent, especially the Deesis on the wall of the gallery on the 2nd floor: the faces of Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist are not even iconography, but emotional portraits of living people. Huge circles with Arabic script hung on the walls of the central hall look like leper ulcers.
Basilica Cistern - grandiose, but half-running, very poor lighting.
Gulhane Park on the hillside under the walls of the Tokapi Palace - beautiful flower beds, lawns. tracks. An ordinary European park without attractions. At the beginning, on the right - a passage to the first courtyard of the palace, to the church of St. Irene. If at the central gate there is a line through the frames and guys with machine guns at the ready, then here the entrance is free (these strange Turks).
WARNING. Understanding the transport card (Istanbul Kart)!
There are Biletmatik machines at every tram stop. In the left vertical row of buttons, the top and bottom buttons sequentially switch the menu language. You have to poke until you find your own. There are 3 items in the main menu:
"one time - 5 lira" (one-time ticket);
“several times - 6 lira” (this is the cost of the card itself) - select this item in the right row of buttons and insert a 20 lira banknote into the receiver. The machine issues a card, on which 14 lira remains to pay for the fare (2.60 on average, or maybe 1.85, I didn’t understand the pattern);
"top up the card": put the card on the machine. The display shows the balance. We insert a bill (does not accept coins) - it shows the new amount on the card.
You can use any company by passing it from hand to hand at the turnstile (as long as there is money on the card).
AND ANOTHER ATTENTION. Do not change dollars near Sultanahmet!
On the first evening, walking along the street from Sofia along the tram, we look at the rate of 5.4025 in one place, a little further - 5.4075. Well, is it happiness? Damn, a couple of stops (preferably in the direction of the Grand Bazaar) - and already from 5.65 to 5.75. Feel the difference.
And old-style bucks are exchanged everywhere with a horse commission ($15 from $100)!
Euro is also possible, but the exchange rate will be worse (in our understanding of the ratio through the ruble).
AND BTW.
In the tram, metro and marinas there is free WiFi “Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyesi-IBB”. The password can be received by SMS with a single registration to the specified phone number. To do this, select the country in the menu - Russia to enter the number correctly.
A specific list of places where it is available can be found by searching for "WiFi Istanbul".
April 9.
Princes' Islands - Buyukada.
Tram T1 to Eminonu Pier. Then - on a regular (! ) ferry using a transport card (4 - 5 lira, I don’t remember exactly). Walks at intervals of about half an hour (find a pavilion, there are several of them). There are other flights, for cash, more expensive, go less frequently. The journey takes about 1.5 hours. The schedule, if you didn’t have time before boarding (the crowd in the pavilion), you can see, take a picture with the captain, a cabin near the engine room. Schedule included.
The Monastery of St. George of Kudunsky on top of the southern hill, the highest point of the island. From the pier - about 4 km horizontally and 200 m vertically. First through residential areas (steeply up), then more gently through a magnificent pine forest. The last kilometer of the road, paved with uneven paving stones, sometimes rises at an angle of up to 30-40? .
Now on the site of the monastery there is a small chapel in which a Greek monk serves.
Next to the chapel there is a cafe where you can have a good meal. When we got up, half the sky covered the rain front. By the time we finished the kebab, the rain had stopped, but it was not easy to go down the slippery stones.
We sailed back to the eastern shore of the Bosphorus (Kadikoy). Then I looked at the schedule - he was supposed to go to Eminonu. Maybe they just left early for the whole crowd, but in the dark they did not immediately understand which coast J.
We traveled by metro with a change (one more adventure and knowledge of the city). Stations: Kadikoy - Ayrilik Cesmesi (one stop on the red line) - transfer to the gray one, into the tunnel under the Bosphorus - two more stops to Sirkeci. The transition during the transfer is long and difficult, at the forks of the corridors you need to ask the metro employees for directions to the desired station.
There is a transfer to the T1 tram stop of the same name. This is the main route in the center. On it you can get to almost all the right places.
April 10.
Hiking route, everything is nearby.
Theodosius Cistern.
The former Church of Sergius and Bacchus (Small Hagia Sophia) is now a mosque.
Topkapi Palace.
Grand Bazaar (tram to Beyazit).
April 11.
Orthodox monuments on the outskirts of the old city, near the Golden Horn.
T1 tram to Eminonu, forward along the coast beyond (not across) Galata Bridge - bus station. Buses 99 and 99A along the Golden Horn to the stop “sehit tolga ecebalin” (announced by voice and on the scoreboard). Bus schedule included. Next - on the navigator.
Vlaherna Church of the Virgin.
In 473 of Holy Land Robe of the Virgin, for which Leo Emperor built a special building next to the church. The church commemorates this event every year on the day of the Deposition of the Robe. In the reign of Leo, the Blachernae source was also transferred under the roof 8F_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0">holy water. During the siege by the Saracens in 910, the Mother of God appeared to those praying in the temple and spread a white veil over Constantinople (omophorion) - in honor of this event, the Orthodox feast of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos was established.
In the church, the minister will give you a bottle of holy water from the spring. You can drink and wash yourself. There is a church shop on the territory, a large selection of good quality Orthodox icons.
Church of Christ the Savior in the fields of Chora Monastery.
Not active, called "Kariye Museum". Partially open due to restoration. Affordable mosaics of stunning beauty. To get an audio guide, you need to give your passport (fak-yu). All descriptions can be downloaded in advance.
Temple of Our Lady Pammakarista (Fethiye Museum) - CLOSED for restoration until November 2020
Only scaffolding is visible behind the iron fence.
Church of Mary of Mongolia (Temple of Panagia Muholiotissa).
The fate of the daughter of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos Mary, who founded a monastery on this site, and in fact was never canonized as a saint, is exciting.
Entrance to the temple grounds through an iron door in a red stone wall. Press the call button and ask to enter ("Can I come in? ") - they will open it for you.
St. George's Cathedral.
The residence of the former Ecumenical, and now Istanbul J Patriarch Bartholomew.
Entrance - through a police post with a frame - free. Clean, modest. Fat fluffy cats are walking in the yard. Arrived at the end of the service. Four monks sang beautifully in Greek. There were only a few tourists in the temple. The temple premises are dark and gloomy even when illuminated. At the end of the service, everyone was expelled. Somehow not in our way…
In general, it’s a pity for the old man: life surrounded by Turks, of course, is not sugar, but he didn’t get along with the same ones. Our split under Nikon was at least for faith, but this one was for stew. He lost his reputation, and even if he gets what he promised: the president is a temporary post, one gave, the other can send... but where is holiness?
Back - to the embankment to the nearest bus stop. Everyone goes to Eminonu, but in different ways. Ours went across the bridge, there you can also transfer to T1 - see the navigator along the way.
Leaving on the other side of the bay, we decided to return on foot across the Galata Bridge, at the same time having a snack on the advertised fish. On the lower gallery, restaurants are all along the entire bridge. We were caught in one of the first. Well, in general, nothing special...
April 12.
Istiklal Street - Taksim Square - Galata Tower.
We take T1, which goes to Kabatas, across the bridge (! Look at the board on the car! ).
You can drive to the end and transfer to the Kabatas - Taksim funicular.
We drove to Karakoy and transferred to the Karakoy - Beyoglu funicular (Tunel Line), to the near end of Istiklal. The walking route back and forth with passing superficial shopping took 4 hours 15 minutes. to the tower, an hour in line for the tower, lift, 15 min. on the observation deck (the wind almost pulled the phone out of the hands during panoramic shooting), and another 15 minutes. to the tram.
Dinner at Mevlana with a wonderful dish "Etli Testi" - a clay pot is served on a plate with burning coals, it breaks, and meat stew with vegetables falls out of it onto a plate (portion for two hungry people). To him - inflated hot bread. Recommend! Freshly squeezed pomegranate juice for dessert.
April 13.
Filoxena Cistern - CLOSED for repairs. No explanations, only construction debris is visible through the dirty glass of the pavilion.
Through the Grand Bazaar to the Egyptian Bazaar along shopping streets filled with an impassable crowd, mostly locals. "Walk" is purely for a sense of color, because optimally to Egyptian - from Eminonu.
At 15.00 taxi to the airport, flight 18.50. Saturday, terrible traffic jams in the city, we drove for more than 2.5 hours (upon arrival, from there - a little more than an hour). They wanted it earlier, but it turned out... current-current. This must be taken into account!
Summary.
The end of a trip is always a different feeling.
Returning from Tenerife and Gran Canaria, where we rented a car; from Hainan, where they flew “on pins and needles” and most of the time was spent on procedures - regret about the brevity and incompleteness: just a week, you can still travel and see interesting and unique things.
After Vietnam and Thailand - well, that's it, we've had a swim, we've had a fry, it's time to go home, there's nothing else to do here. The only interesting moment was the flight from Phuket to Cambodia, the temples of Angkor.
I initially went to Istanbul without much desire - my wife wanted to look at Constantinople, but I understood that it was hopeless, like a walk through a cemetery. Therefore, the main feeling at the end is, as I understand it, General Charnot, who did not have a return ticket.
Nevertheless, as a result, a lot of useful technical information was obtained, which I could not help but share.
PS.
Since the report is technical, I don’t post photos - everyone takes pictures of themselves, and I didn’t find anything new that they hadn’t seen before me.
The only thing of value:
- ferry schedule (Teleferiko) from the Princes' Islands to Istanbul obtained from the captain. In the columns, the departure time from each island (by its name). The meaning of the asterisks is unknown.
- bus number 99 timetable from Eminonu terminus (3 blocks: weekdays - Saturday - Sunday).
– the site does not accept a file with dots for MAPS. ME. Who needs it - write addresses here, I'll reset it.
