I found the the objects in the treasury of the Topkapi Palace too oppressively ornate, including the Topkapi Dagger, and preferred the decorative schemes in the surrounding buildings, including the decoration in the Gate of Felicity as one leaves the Second Court:
The columns outside the Imperial Treasury:
We started (shoeless) with the Blue Mosque, built for Sultan Ahmet I by Mehmet Ağa between 1609 and 1616, the grandest of the great mosques on the line of hills visible from the Golden Horn:
I took an early morning prowl round the local streets of Istanbul. We’re staying halfway between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia, so well placed to explore the streets when only the shoe shine man was up. At 9.05 sharp the staff of the hotel assembled outside to honour the memory of Ataturk to the sound of distant sirens and the wailing of boats on the Bosphorus.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 