More of Istanbul!

Istanbul's beautiful skyline.

A few weeks after our trip to Germany, we decided that we should at least try and explore some of Turkey. Turkey is a HUGE country and since there is so much history here, there is a lot to see! I knew that Turkey was a central part of the Greeks, Romans and Ottoman Empires, but I never realised how big a part it actually played in these empires until we went around.

First of all, since we are in Istanbul, we should at least see some more of this magnificent city. Our first trip was to the Maiden's tower or Kiz Kulesi in Turkish. It is located in the Bosphorus just off the shore of the Asian side. It was built in 408 BC to control movements on the Bosphorus and was also used as a lighthouse for many years. It has been restored many times, the latest in 1998 and it is now open for the public.

Maiden's Tower

There are many legends about the Tower. The most famous one involves a Sultan's daughter. It was prophesised that she would die on her 18th birthday by a snake bite so her father put her on the island away from snakes. On her 18th birthday he took her a basket of fruit and out of it came a snake that bit her and she died. This is why it is called the Maiden's tower. Now it is just a cafe and a restaurant. It was a beautiful day when we went and the view was amazing.

View from the Maiden's Tower with one of the Bosphorus bridges.

On our way to The Maiden's Tower in the boat.

After the Maiden's tower we decided to go the most famous mosque in Istanbul, Aya Sofia.

Aya Sofia

Shailen by the entrance to Aya Sofia.

Aya Sofia in Turkish or Hagia Sophia in Greek, Sancta Sophia in Latin or just Church of the Divine Wisdom in English! As you have already ascertained, Aya Sofia was a church built in 537 by Emperor Justinian in an attempt to restore the Greatness of the Roman Empire. He definitely achieved this and he summed it up when he first walked inside and proclaimed “Glory to God that I have been judged worthy of such a work. Oh Solomon! I have outdone you!” When we stepped foot inside we could easily excuse his cockiness. The Church reigned as the greatest church in Christendom until the conquest of 1453 by Memhet the Conqueror who converted it into a mosque (1453 is a really important year for the Turks as this was the year that the Turks captured back Istanbul, then Constantinople, from the Greeks and apparently at soccer matches when the 2 countries play, there are banners saying “Remember 1453!”!!! – crazy stuff!). It stayed as a mosque until 1935 when Atatürk himself proclaimed it a museum.

Now to go off on a little tangent, Atatürk means ‘Father Turk’ and that was the name given to Mustafa Kemal who revolutionised Turkey. Mustafa Kemal emerged as a strong leader from the Battle of Gallipoli in WWI (this is the battle where the ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corp) and British troops were hopelessly defeated). After the War, foreign countries occupied much of Turkey and there were Treaties diminishing the Turks Land (much like what happened to Germany) and as so often happened, a movement began to claim lost land back. Mustafa was the man that stepped up to the plate and took charge and succeeded. After Turkey was once again unified he set about changing a few things. He was an extremely forward thinker and wanted to push Turkey to become a more Western Country. During the 1920’s and 30’s he created the Turkish language and got rid of the Arabic scrips and adopted the Roman alphabet, banned the Fez, adopted the Gregorian calendar (what we use) and declared that the Turks have surnames (something they never had before)! He did some great things and at a time when the world churned out the likes of Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, it seems a shame to put him into that list because he showed that radical reforms can be successful when handled the right way. And because of this there are many statues of him all over Turkey, every classroom in a school has to have his picture in it as well as many shops. After being on the wrong side in WWI and after the death of Atatürk in 1938, they stayed out of WWII.

Back to Aya Sofia… It was really a remarkable sight to behold inside, even though scaffolding was visible in the main dome (there’s a lot of restoration work that is taking place inside that will be ongoing for another few years at least).

Inside Aya Sofia.

The central Dome with all the scaffolding.

The Mihrad which shows the direction of Mecca and therefore which direction they pray towards. This was added when it was turned into a Mosque.

The Minbar where the Imam stands and delivers the sermons from.

The Sultan's lodge. So that the Sultan could come and pray without being seen.

The mosque has 2 levels so you can walk up to the second level and look down on everything which is quite nice.

Walking up to the second level.

Looking down in to the Mosque.

It’s amazing that two different religions used this building as a holy place. There were no minarets when the church was built but was added after 1453. Inside the church there were obviously mosaics depicting Christ and many Christian scenes and once the church was converted to a mosque these mosaics weren’t “kosher’ with Islam. Luckily, instead of destroying the mosaics, they just plastered the wall to cover it up which makes it easier for us now to remove the plaster and see the artwork from 1500 years ago.

The Commenos Mosaic. Virgin Mary is in the middle holding Christ with Emperor John II Kommenos on her right and Empress Eirene on her left.

This Mosaic shows The Virgin Mary holding Christ in the middle with Emperor Constantine on her left offering a model of the City and on her right Emperor Justinian I offering a model of Aya Sofia.

This Mosaic was over the Imperial gate which was used only by the emperors as they entered the church. Mosaic could be either Leo VI the wise or his son Constantine VII bowing down in front of Christ Pantocrator.

One thing that I just loved inside was by the entrance at the Imperial Door, which during the time it was a church, only imperial processions were permitted to pass through and so there were guards stationed at the doors and you can see a definite hollow in the marble floor where they stood!

Alisa standing where the guards once stood.

There was also a column dubbed the ‘weeping column’ which has a copper facing that’s pierced by a hole. Legend has it that those that put their finger in the hole and makes a wish will see the wish come true if the finger emerges moist. We tried it and all we felt was the cold marble on our finger, we couldn’t tell if it was moist or cold…

Shailen with his thumb in the weeping column.

From Aya Sofia we decided to go and check out the Basilica Cisterns or Yerebatan Sarayi in Turkish. They were built in the 6th Century under the city of Istanbul to hold water that came from the aqueduct we talked about in our other Istanbul post. It is a huge 143 by 65m and has 336 columns holding it up. It is capable of holding 80,000 cubic meters of water. One of the strangest things inside the cisterns are the columns that have a statue of Medusa as their base. These blocks have obviously been re-used as one is upside down and the other is sideways.

Inside the beautifully lit up Cisterns.

One of the Medusa heads. This one is upside down.

At this point when writing this Shailen has gone to NZ so I (Alisa) will finish this one and the next couple of blog entries :)

One day Shailen, Mum and I went to see the Archeology museum. This place is huge and although we spent a good couple of hours there we didn't even begin to see everything. For us the best things were the amazing Sarcophagus and the chain that was once across the Golden Horn. The Sarcophagi have incredible detail on them and on some of them you could even see the remains of the colours they used. When completed they must have been an incredible sight! Below are some of the best ones.

Shailen by the entrance to the Museum.

Sarcophagi from the Royal Necropolis of Sidon.

A model giving you an idea of what colours they were.

I think we mentioned in our other Istanbul blog about how there was once a chain across the Bosphorus restricting movement. The same is also said about the Golden Horn which is a inlet of the Bosphorus. Mum told us one story about how when one boat tried to cross the chain they all ran to the back of the boat until the front lifted out over the chain and then all ran back to the front to get the back over! I don't know if this is true or not but is worth a laugh thinking about it. The original chain is still in the Museum.


One Friday after school we caught a free bus out to the Energy Museum. It used to be an old power station and has been converted into a museum. It was fun having a look around and it is quite hands on. But the best thing was standing infront of a camera and seeing us appear as seen below. We think they were infrared or heat sensing cameras but they gave us a laugh!

From left to right: Dad, Me, Mum and Shailen looking lovely in yellow and red.

So although we have seen quite a bit of Istanbul there is still so much more to see! We haven't been to the blue Mosque yet which is the only Mosque to have 6 Minarets. We haven't been to either the Topkapi or Dolmabache Palaces and the list goes on! But first we are going to see some more of Turkey itself so stay tuned!

Nürnberg

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Along the way we saw fields and fields of Wind Turbines.

This is a really cute village we saw along the way on the train.

We quickly decided that Nürnberg (Nuremberg, in English) was our favourite city so far.
It is a city divided into the Old and New City. The Old City (Aldtstadt) is the sight of all the tourist attractions and still has the walls around it so we had no need to even venture into the New City.

Map showing the old city of Nürnberg.

Nürnberg was completely built up from the rubble after it was bombed in an air raid by the allies on 2 January 1945 (notice a common theme of all these cities?). The castle and 3 churches were painstakingly rebuilt using the original stone! Hitler also loved Nürnberg because it seemed that he used it as his venue for his Nazi Party Rallies. During the mid 1930’s there were week-long festivals held at the Rally Grounds just outside of the Aldtstat (I’ll talk about this later on when we go the rally grounds).

First things first when we arrived was to find a place to stay and apparently there are only 2 hostels in the city!

Walking around finding the Hostel along the city walls.

We made our way to the first (with our heavy packs on) and then decided to go and check the other place out which was on the completely opposite end of Aldtstadt. The YHA was here and was located in the castle, which was really cool, but more expensive than the other.

The YHA situated in the Old Stables of the Castle.

So we trudged back to the first place and dropped off our bags. This place turned out to be the best hostel we stayed at in Germany. The hostel wasn’t too big and so we got to meet and know some of the people staying there and we even went places together – this is what backpacking is all about! We met 2 Americans, 1 of which was in the army and based in Iraq, and also 2 Australians.

After we dropped of our bags we decided to take a walk along Königsraße, which is their ‘main’ street through the centre of Aldtstadt. We passed these great town squares with magnificent churches and really old wooden German style buildings.

The above photos show the buildings around Nürnberg, the cute cobbled streets and the canals. We will go into more detail later of the important buildings.

When we were walking around we didn’t know that we were walking along the path of many Nazi Soldiers when they came to the Nürnberg Rallies. We walked right through the town up to watch the sunset from the Castle.

Walking up into the Castle.

Me with a view of the old town.

Sunset over Nürnberg.

Once the sun set we went back to the Hostel to have dinner and found all the other backpackers (5 of them) in the kitchen/lounge area chatting. We all got talking and after dinner we all went out to a Beer House as the Aussies wanted to celebrate Australia Day (not that we needed an excuse to drink!). So the 2 Aussies, 2 Americans, 1 German chick and the 2 Kiwis (us) drank up a storm in the place as we got to know each other.

The next day we decided to take a walking tour of the city but with no guide… This was achieved by technology. The German Museum in Nürnberg has a walking tour through Aldtstadt by using a handheld computer and earphones that tells you about the places.

The German National Museum.

This tour was all linked to a famous German artist Albrecht Dürer and his life and role in the community. We all laughed at each other walking around with these computers and with the headphones plugged into our ears. We called it our Japanese day LOL

Me posing with my Guide.

The four Japanese boys - Andrew, Derek, Chris and Shailen.

The tour started off in the German Museum and took us through to look at some of Albrecht's art. Some of works are really quite impressive especially the one he did of his teacher which is so lifelike.

A wonderful frame Dürer created.

Some of his works of art.

From here we headed out into the town, our first stop St. Lorenz church which was built between 1250-1477. Like most things it was destroyed during the war and rebuilt. It is really quite a stunning church and has some of Albrecht's paintings inside it.

St. Lorenz Church.

The side of St. Lorenz church.

Next it was to the Hospital of the Holy Ghost, which is situated over a canal.

The front and back of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost.

The Hospital of the Holy Ghost was erected in 1331 as a welfare foundation. The imperial crown jewels were kept here during the middle ages where they were taken out once a year.

One thing about Nürnberg is the neat bridges that criss-cross over the Pegnitz River. You can see these in the pictures.




From here we crossed the river and saw the Unschlitthaus Granary where the grains were kept.

Unschlitthaus Granary

Along the way the audio guide is also giving us information such as Nurnberg had relations with many other countries and was actually the first place to make a globe! We also learn more about why Albrecht Durer was such an important and revolutionary artist in his time. He was the first artist to use landscape and animals as the main focus in a painting rather than just in the background. One of his most famous paintings is of a rabbit, which is very lifelike. If you look closer you can actually see that there is a window inside the rabbits eye as if the rabbit was inside Albrecht’s studio while he was being painted. Another one is of a Rhinocerous which he painted without ever seeing one. He was sent a description of one and drew it based on this. It is quite amazing how close to the real thing it was.

From the Granary we crossed back over the River on the Maxbrucke or Max bridge to the Dürer-Pirckheimer Fountain which was a fountain of friendship between Dürer and Pirckheimer. The two were really close friends.

We carried on to see the church of St. Sebaldus where Dürer was baptised. His art is also prominent in this church along with a stained window he designed which was also almost completely demolished during the war and has since been rebuilt.

The back of St. Sebaldus. Unfortunately there was scaffolding on the front.

From here it was to the main marketplace or Hauptmarkt.

Hauptmarkt.

Statue in the main square.

They often have markets here and it is surrounded by old buildings that we have since seen in pictures with Nazi flags hanging from them (very weird to see!). In a strange moment we discovered that the building to which the crown jewels were displayed in front of once a year is now a McDonalds?!

It was on to the Town Hall (Rathaus) which has an old and new part. The old part was built in 1340 and included a hall 40 meters long. The new town hall was erected from 1616-1622. There are also medieval dungeons under the hall with a torture chamber!!!

The Town Hall.

The back of the Town Hall.

Nürnberg was really important after the war finished as it was the location of the court preceedings that found the Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes - The Nürnberg Trials.

Picture of the Executed Nazi Party members through the Nürnberg Trials.

From the Town Hall we went to see a Dürer Monument and then finished up at his house, which has been turned into a museum.

Dürer Monument.

The Dürer House

His house was quite large as it was also his work studio. While we were there we were given a picture off one of his original printing machines.

After all of this we still weren’t done, as there was still the Documentation Museum on the Nazi Rally Grounds. I was really looking forward to this as I’ve seen a few photos of the Rallies that were held there so now we were finally heading there.

The Documentation Centre is located in the north wing of the Congress Hall on the Rally Grounds. It dealt with the causes, relationships and consequences of Nazi regime. Upon entering we are given audio guides for the exhibition as nothing is written in English (quite annoying), but we got to see the rise of the Nazi Party and also the significance of Nürnberg to Adolf Hitler.

The Documentation Centre in the Congress Hall.

Picture showing the Rallies in the Rally Grounds.

Nürnberg all decked out in Flags etc

The main square at that time.

Nürnberg as it was after the war. Mostly destroyed!

1927 and 1929 were the first years that the Nazi’s held their so-called Party Rallies in the Luitpoldhain in Nuremberg. In 1933 Nuremberg was officially designated the “City of the Reichsparteitage”. They created a link between the Nazi movement and the great past of the Imperial City of Nuremberg, a city associated with the splendour of past Emperors and home to the medieval Imperial Diets. The Nazi Party Rallies were held every year in September, up until 1938. They lasted a week and drew as many as one million people to Nuremberg from all over Germany.

It took us about 3 hours to go around the centre and when it came time for us to go and see the actual grounds it was dark so luckily we didn’t have to pay to go around so we decided to come back the next day before getting on the train to Mainz.

So that night we tried to find a supermarket to get dinner but being a Sunday, nothing was opened, so it had to be take-away’s. We went to Burger King and the reason why I am telling you this is because I got something that we don’t get in NZ, Australia or SA… a TRIPLE Whopper, 333g of meat alone!!! It was a heavy burger!!!


The next morning we headed back to the Rally Grounds. The first place we saw was the Congress Hall. A self-supporting roof construction was to span the main hall at a height of approximately 70 metres. The monumental building would have provided space for over 50,000 people and would thus have been almost twice as big as the Coliseum in Rome. The unfinished shell (1937–1939) was put up to a height of 39 metres. Construction work was abandoned in World War II. The centre of the hall was to be a speaker‘s platform for the “Führer”, Adolf Hitler, and all spectator stands were to be facing him.

Plans for what it will look like inside the Congress Hall if completed.

Now we all know Hitler was a Megalomaniac and he loved doing things on a Grand Scale and these buildings are a testament to that. These were done to also suggest to the individual visitor to the Party Rallies that he was participating in something major and significant, while at the same time conveying the impression of his own insignificance. The sophisticated use of lighting effects further conveyed this message and at night the “cathedral of light” showed off the Buildings and the Grandeur of the Third Reich.

Picture showing the Cathedral of light.

After the war, the question what to do with the unfinished shell was raised. The City of Nürnberg developed various plans, such as for example demolishing or re-building the shell as a sports stadium. All plans fell through because of prohibitive costs. In 1987, the City Council rejected the suggestion of an investor to convert the building into a leisure and shopping centre. Today, the north wing houses the “Documentation Centre Party Rally Grounds”, while the south wing is used by the Nürnberg Symphony Orchestra. Open air concerts take place in the southern inner courtyard. Other parts of the building are used for storage purposes.

Picture showing the Congress Hall from the air.

Different views of the Congress Hall. It really is quite a massive structure.

We then walked on to the Großestraße (Great Road) (ß are pronounced as a double ‘s’) and from the day before we knew that the stones used to lay this road was made in Concentration camps like Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Groß-Rosen, and Natzweiler-Struthof that were set up near stone quarries (they also provided stone for many of the buildings too). This was before the war so the people in the Concentration Camps weren’t Jews or Gypsies but political prisoners. The road was built so that it points directly to the Imperial Castle, visually creating the link between the Nazi movement and the great past. It really was eerie walking along this street knowing that people in Concentration Camps made the road – it was a feeling I just can't describe…

The great road stretching off into the distance. Its 60m wide and only 1.5 of the 2kms were completed!

Walking along the Great Street.

The blocks in the street are all beautifully done, regular and smooth.

We then walked on to the actual stadium and Zeppelin field (312 x 285 metres interior area, bigger than 12 football fields) with the main grandstand was the only planned construction work to be completed. It provided space for up to 200,000 people. Here mass parades of the German Labour Service, the Wehrmacht, and office bearers of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) were staged to assemble before the “Führer”, Adolf Hitler.

The stadium that Hitler built. Has since been re-done and is still used.

The “Cathedral of Light” provided spectacular effects, when over 150 particularly strong floodlights beamed right up into the sky. The architect, Albert Speer, chose the ancient Pergamon Altar as a model for the grandstand. The building, erected in 1935–1937, was made of concrete and brickwork, faced with shell lime slabs. The original complex was considered a representative example of National Socialist state architecture. During World War II, the complex remained largely intact but on 22 April 1945, the US Army held its victory parade at the main grandstand. After the ceremony, the swastika was blown up to make the entire world aware of the end of National Socialism. In 1967, the City of Nürnberg had the pillar galleries demolished because they were unsafe (this was somewhat disappointing to me because I had seen photos of these adorned with the Nazi Swastika banner and it would have been great to visualise this but there are no pillars…). Some years later, the side towers were also taken down to half their previous height. The area has lost a bit of its Grandeur façade but it is still has its Grandeur feel and that tells you something of the magnitude of this place!

What the Grandstand used to look like.

The main Grandstand. A lot smaller now than it used to be.

Me standing where he once stood. A bit scary really!

Shailen looking out onto the Rally grounds.

The rally grounds. Although the center is kept up, the stands are full of weeds etc.

One of the side Towers. Alot smaller than what it used to be.

Watch the first 1:57 of this clip. It also shows the blowing up of the swastika by the Yanks after they won the war. You can also see the sheer size of the place and also see the Grandstand before the pillars were taken down.

We went around to the back of the grandstand and saw the train station that was built specifically for getting people to the rallies. Also although you can't get into the grandstand we read that the inside has a gold mosaic ceiling!

The back of the Grandstand.

The train station built for the rallies.

This is a post card photo that shows the plans for Nürnberg Rally Grounds. Many building weren't even started. you can see the Congress Hall (5), Zeppelin Field (8) and the Großestraße.

Alisa then wanted to see the Imperial Castle a bit more so we trudged off there and managed to go up the tower and look over Nürnberg. This time I knew which direction the Rally Grounds were and took a photo of it from up there.

Walking around the Castle grounds there are lots of neat old buildings.

Me in the Castle grounds.

The tower we went up.

Walking up the many stairs (111 steps) to get to the top.

But the view from the top is worth it.

Leaving the Castle.

The moat around the old city with the city walls on the left.

Finishing off everything we wanted to do in Nürnberg (We could have stayed longer because there was just something about this city that was fascinating to us both) we rushed off to the train station to get to Frankfurt and then go off to Mainz while it was still bright. This proved to be a tall order and we ended up arriving in Mainz at dusk. All we really wanted to do was see the Rhine River so it wasn’t a complete waste of a trip there however we would have loved to explore the city a bit more. We made our way back to Frankfurt and the next day we were flying out of Germany.

The Rhine River as the sun is setting.

Us with the Rhine River.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Germany and even Alisa was fascinated with the history of Germany (Alisa HATES history!). It was amazing to see how the country built itself up from the War and in Berlin, as recently as 1989/90 when the Berlin wall went down.