Noon Report:

• Location: N 40° 40.85′, E 027° 30.60′
• Speed: 17.8 knots
• Course: 66º
• Weather: Partly Cloudy
• Temperature: 12º C; 54º F
• Wind: ESE 5 knots; 7 mph
• Sea: Calm

Today was a strange hybrid day – a sea day with an evening excursion. As a nod to my head cold we didn’t set the alarm.
I woke up just before 8:00 to this sight off our port side.

The Dardanelles are a strait connecting the Aegean Sea to the Marmara Sea south of Istanbul.

Cruising the Dardanelles is more like cruising a river than ocean as land was pretty close on both sides of us. Which made it a bit more interesting an hour later when that view off our balcony was replaced by this one:

In an effort to keep my “out and about time” germs to a minimum, we were more selective about the lectures we chose to attend.

• We attended the 9:30 “The Ottoman Empire” – This is stuff they never teach you in school. It filled in a lot of historical gaps.
• We skipped the 11:00 “Ancient History of Istanbul” – Got most of that in a recent lecture.
• We ordered room service lunch. Viking doesn’t charge for room service but it’s something we’ve never thought to try. Not bad. I had a very nice ham panini and Cheryl had a “Chairman’s Choice Poached Salmon”
• At 2:00 Cheryl attended a magic seminar taught by one of our guest entertainers. She won’t tell me what she learned; “A magician never reveals his tricks.”
• At 3:00 we had a choir rehearsal – last one before the show on Monday
• We skipped the 4:30 Q&A with our resident naturalist

We docked in Istanbul at 6:00 PM. Here are a few shots as we came into port.

I was feeling a bit better so we had a quick dinner (they do amazing things with soup here) and bundled up for the “Panoramic Istanbul by Night” excursion.

This was a bus ride around town while our guide, Firat, talked about what we were seeing and how things fit together historically. Then we had a “short” photo stop near the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia Mosque. The plan said, “short.” Firat said; “How about 45 minutes.” So we wandered around the park between the two mosques. The Blue Mosque has been closed for renovation for the past 6 years and will be opened tomorrow so it was pretty-much unlighted. The Hagia Sophia, on the other hand, was all lit up, and boy was it crowded. It seems that today is the last day of Ramadan and lots of people wanted to get to the mosque for evening prayers. We got reasonably close but couldn’t get inside.

We did get to experience a pretty cool phenomenon, though.
First we heard the Muezzin at the Blue Mosque. He went on for a bit. Then we heard the Muezzin at the Hagia Sophia. He went on for a bit. Then back to the Blue Mosque and from then on they were trading phrases. One would sing a phrase, then the other would repeat it – with slight variations in ornamentation, then the next phrase would be called and repeated and so on. Standing in the middle listening to that was a real experience (and very loud as they are broadcasting out to the city).

Eventually we gathered and made our way
back to the bus and
back to the ship
and into bed.

‘Cause tomorrow’s another day.

Nite all,
R

Cheryl’s Factoids:

• The new passport control/immigration center was completed during the past 2 years of Covid so we experienced this new center – which is mostly underground. It’s HUGE with 3 different levels (the exit level back to the ship routes you first through a duty-free shop) and very long hallways. Also, the bathroom exit door has no handle so you can’t get out-unless you notice the blue blinking panel on the wall by the door (but it’s behind you if you are knocking on the door hoping someone will hear you and let you out). I think you are just supposed to wave your hand over it, so you don’t touch any surfaces.
• During Ramadan, adult children come from all over Turkey back to Istanbul to visit their parents-so the population and the traffic congestion triples. Since today is the last day of Ramadan, a lot of the visitors have gone back to their home cities-so the traffic was fairly light. Tomorrow, the Blue Mosque (which has been under re-construction for the last 6 years) will be re-opened by the President of Turkey so that could get pretty crowded.
• As we drove around Istanbul this evening, we passed the rail terminus of the Orient Express (made famous in an Agatha Christie novel) – this railway ran from London to Istanbul and lasted until 1977.
• The many bridges are lit up at night. Istanbul is the only city in the world that straddles two continents – Europe and Asia – which are separated by the rift zone of the Bosphorus Strait. Istanbul has 2 suspension bridges that cross the Bosphorus Strait and 2 tunnels that run under it. The Bosphorus also has a deep fjord extending northwest for 5 miles out of the Strait into the European side. This is crossed by the Galatea two-tier drawbridge across the Golden Horn Bay . This bridge links the south end of the ancient walled city of Istanbul (with its historic religious sites) to the commercial side of the city on the north end (where a large portion of non-muslim and foreign merchants live and work).