Turkey Text and photos by Carol Mueller A
vendor with a small cart, a hand juicer and two boxes of fruit stood outside the gilded entrance to Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, squeezing out a living selling fresh juice to thirsty tourists. Mixing pome- granates and oranges he created a bright red beverage sweet enough to suit a sultan.
That drink was a first taste of Turkey. I loved the color, texture and exotic flavor produced by such dissimilar fruits and sought out the drink several more times while traveling throughout the country. But the mixture was never as sweet. Maybe it was a metaphor for Turkey’s his- tory, where the mix of dissimilar ethnicities and religions has seldom been sweet and was often crushing. On a sunny day in modern Istanbul, some of that thorny history came wrapped in three beautiful buildings: the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace. A triple threat of Turkish tourism, they are filled with stun- ning examples of art and architecture from the Byzantine era forward and served as the kickoff to an eight-day tour of Turkey. Topkapi Palace deserved an Oscar for opulence. The star of a namesake 1964 Hollywood heist movie, it boldly displayed the target treasure, an emerald encrusted dag-
ger, in a brightly lit case. But there was more to Topkapi than precious stones. Built in 1459 by Sultan Medmed II, this stunning complex of white buildings, courtyards and gardens was the resi- dence of Ottoman sultans for 400 years. Here they ruled in luxury, with their wives and concubines, gold and jewels, and a commanding view of the Bosphorus, one of the straits separating Europe and Asia. Topkapi’s history, replete with harems and eunuchs and palace intrigues, came to a halt in 1921 when the Ottoman Empire ended and it was turned into a museum. The Blue Mosque, on the end of a three-structure com- plex, remains what it was intended to be: an Islamic house of worship. Commissioned in 1609 by Sultan Ahmet I, it’s unique for its cascading domes, six minarets, and the beautiful blue tiled interior for which it is named. Visitors to the Blue Mosque must remove their shoes to enter, but women are no longer required to cover their heads. The centerpiece and oldest structure of the three is the Hagia Sophia, which means Church of the Holy Wis- dom. Originally built in the fourth century (arguably by Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of the Roman Empire and founder of Constantinople, today’s Istanbul), it was twice destroyed and rebuilt before Emperor Justinian I built it in its present form in 532. One of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine
Mueller, a freelance writer, is a member of Lutheran Church of the Ascension, Northfield, Ill. 16 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
A trip on the grounds of faith
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