We returned to the Ayasofya to visit the Sultan’s palace. It is behind the mosque and extends to the water’s edge. It was a vivid example of what the unrest in Turkey has done to tourism. Prior to the bomb at the airport and the attempted coup, the wait in lines to the palace and the Ayasofya were ½ an hour to an hour long and it took over half an hour to get into each of the exhibits. When we visited, there were no lines at all for anything. We just walked right in. Security was very present and at every "gate" from one section of the palace to another were guards, some with machine guns. When I visited the kitchens, I was one of 5 people.
The palace is more like a campus with separate buildings for different activities. A building for the guards, for the sultan, for the sultan’s wives (harem), the kitchens, the meeting/greeting room, the armory and the treasury which all together create a campus like arrangement.
For the guards and servants were their quarters and the armory which is now a museum of weapons that were used throughout the sultan’s reign. The treasury was a big building where finances were managed and riches stored. The kitchens were in one long building with ten sections and in each section something different was cooked. For example, there was a kitchen for meat, vegetables, breads, beverages, candies and desserts.
I chose to walk through the kitchens. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but the displays included the pottery and cooking pots used in the kitchens. The displays also talked about the amount of food that went through the kitchens and had examples of menus. The palace housed and fed an average of 4,000 to 6,000 people. At its height there were 10,000. The kitchens produced 2 meals a day and the main staples appeared to be lamb and sheep, rice and vegetables. Can you imagine cooking for 10,000 people with only wood stoves and wood fired ovens?
From the palace we returned to our hotel for our bags and headed to the airport for our flight to Bucharest. The flight was fine although the airlines had some system problems and seemed to lose (temporarily) some of our group, but finally we were on the plane. In Europe they are no better than here, we were squeezed in like sardines. I had the pleasure of a man in front of me who spent the entire flight with his seat reclined so it was pretty miserable. To their credit, even on a flight of just one hour we got drinks (including alcohol) and a very nice vegetarian sandwich and cookies. Almost made up for the miserable seat.
We stayed in the Radisson Blu in downtown Bucharest. Unfortunately, by then I was sick, my poor ears still in pain from the flight. I spent the first day in Bucharest in bed trying to shake the cold and keep it to myself. It worked, by day 2 I was 90% better.
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