The gem of Istanbul, this church,  turned Mosque,  turned museum, back to mosque,  to mosque/museum.  Non Muslims can’t enter the floor,  but our views from the 2nd floor were amazing anyway!  Several of the Christian era gold mosaics are still visible and we were able to see them.

The largest palace of the Sultans of Istanbul,  70,000 sq meters,  mostly outdoor courts,  but beautiful palace too. 

Inside this first gate,  all the people can enter.   The largest court of the palace is open to everyone

Inside the middle gate requires permission from the sultan

Sections of the palace are now exhibition rooms for gifts,  armor,  jewelry, and  robes of the sultans

The last gate,  the inner gate,, into the residence is the sultan

This area is the personal lodging of the Sultan, at least 4 wives,  and 300 our so concubines…. and of course the children.   There is a beautiful viewing place for him to survey his kingdom

Another section of the palace holds the jewels

And last,  the Sultans’ robes

Whirling Dervish ceremony

Very solemn,  very reverent, and very interesting.

We started out day with a cruise on the Bosporus strait  with Europe on 1 side and Asia on the other

Cruises down to the 2nd of 3 bridges and back

We visited the spice bazaar or Egyptian market for a taste of these shopping areas.    Instituted by the sultan as a way to pay for the mosques, each is associate with a mosque complex.   Each sultan built a more elaborate mosque than the last,  36 of these.   Not to be outdone,  Erdogan built the newest and largest in 2019,  which allows 63,000 for worship.

We visited the area is the ancient hippodrome, where chariot races were held in Roman times.   Now it is the central area of old Istanbul

The Blue Mosque, named for the tiles in the ladies gallery,  was just ending noon prayers,  so we were able to visit today.   It is on 1 side of the hippodrome. 

After a rest,  we visited the Grand bazaar

We arrived in Istanbul after a very very early flight from Amman, and thankfully, our Turkey tour meet us and delivered us to our hotel in the old city of Istanbul,  with no agenda for the rest of the day!  We walked a bit to get the lay of the neighborhood, found a great restaurant for dinner and just rested!  We are in the Sultanahmet district!  The great monuments are just around the corner and down the block from our hotel!

Neighborhood streets

Dinner!  A Michelin recommended place and a delicious dinner

Delicious dinner! 

Our last full day with the Viking extention in Jordan started with a long drive. 4-5 hours.   Viking had a great lunch arranged for us before we went to the ruins of the Greco Roman city Jerash from 1st c BC

The theater

The colonnaded street

The object of our trip!  At last!  The walk in has stunning views and is more impressive on person than you can imagine

The narrow canyon or Siq.  Notice how few people are in our pictures.   Tourism is down 90%

Everywhere along the way,  the caves carved into the rock are tombs, and the niches one held images is the Nabatean gods of! There were 2 aquaducts feeding water to the city from 2 springs,  miles away

And at last

There were so few people there,  it was amazing.   And we walked on.  The Street of Facades

The street of colonnades

This is a fast as we went,  enjoyed a bit too easy and then decided to head out.   In total we walked about 14,000 steps,  since we took the golf cart shuttle out.  5 miles was far enough

Our group

An outstanding craft of this area is mosaic.   We visited Mt Nebo, the place Moses was allowed to see the holy land.

The Monestery here, which marks the spot,   is decorated with 3 levels of mosaic floors,  each very impressive. 

We visited another Greek orthodox church where a 3rd c mosaic map was found, describing the holy land

We had to them visit the workshop for mosaics.  

On the drive on,  we passed a crusader castle from the 1100s, once beseiged by Saladin.

Our stop this night is excellent!  Right across the street from the entrance to Petra!  The contemporary town of Petra is called Wadi Musa, or Moses Valley.   Our room and our view.  Tomorrow is the big day!

We’ve arrived first to travel past many bedoin camps along the road to view the dead sea

We stayed right on the dead sea at a really nice spa hotel,  the Movenpic Dead Sea

A 2 AM Wake up call for our 6 AM flight

Breakfast that early,  an egg,  coffee,  some fruit and cheese, …. at least I’m awake.  Our trip to the airport was only 15 minutes in the early morning traffic,  so,  not bad.  

At the airport,  Viking rep Ahmed got us thru security and check in and left us with instructions.   Find the Egypt air office,  tell them you are 27 together for Gate H01, and they will direct you to the bus for another airport!

Well, ALMOST!   we found the gate,  downstairs, but it wouldn’t open for about half hour.   It was a very small area with lots of people,  not just us!  After a bit longer than expected, past our posted boarding time by a lot, they opened the doors to the gate area and the last security check.  (There seems to always be 2 or 3)  we were first in line.   Nice! 

Unfortunately,  only the men could go thru!  At one is these security checks,  everyone is patted down, and only a woman can pat down women.  You guessed it!  No women agents available!  All the men,  the whole plane load,  went thru while we waited. Patiently at first. But as time went on,  tempers were flaring,  particularly among the Muslim women and their men on the other side.  Most of us were watching the spectacle! 

Must have been close to 6 by now,  as men pulled out prayer rugs and got down on the floor in the back of the room.  One elderly woman demanded a chair, pulled it right across the walk way thru the metal detector, right in front of me,  and sat down to pray.  I was hoping she was praying for a last security person,  as i was by then. But,  who knows. 

Now one of the heavily veiled young women,  with a heavy fur lined long coat,  black burka and face covered, gloves even,  was over heating,  and melted to the floor.   Another got down there, i think to help,  but as it is Ramadan, they can’t even drink a bit of water. 

In the meantime,  since then men were all checked thru, they routed some of the women to the other line,  but we still waited.   The pushy lady behind us was pushing our bags, coats and shoes too at this check point, into the unmoving machine.   And we waited.  Nothing moving.

Finally after about half an hour,  a young woman security agent arrived, cheered by the American women in line.  She stopped to argue a bit with the men, but finally she motioned me in,  and the lady behind me, Elaine, also on our tour.   But…. our bags,  shoes,  coats,  etc, having been pushed into the xray machine were going no where, because there was no one  to turn on the conveyor belt and read the xrays!

Now our young security lady had to go back thru and move our things onto the moving belt of the other xray machine.   That stopped her checking thru the ladies,  of course,  but bags were coming thru…. with no one to claim them!  (All while about 4 men stood around, doing nothing,  or yelling for us to take bags.  Our bags were not thru it yet and the ladies that owned these were stuck on the other side of the metal detector shooting for the lady to come back to pat them down!  AAKKK!)

Oh the joys of travel!  Some more humerus things… the 1 Muslim man traveling with 3 young ladies 3 children handling everyone’s boarding passes himself.  Have our men a bit of appreciation for having only 1 wife to attend to!