Day 2 :The Pierre Loti Park

The stop at the Chora Museum was for a quick 15 minutes. Those who did not go into the museum just walked the nearby street or waited in the bus. Next destination was to the Pierre Loti Park. Pierre Loti was a famous and highly respected French writer who had written a lot about Turkey. Apart from this park which has been named after him because he had lived in this neighbourhood, there is also another lane in SultanAhmet named after him.

The attraction of this park is the fact that it is located at a vantage point where one gets a bird's eye view over the Golden Horn. The bus drove up the steep slope to the park and from there, after the brief stop, we took the cable car down the hill to rejoin the tour bus which had gone down to wait for us.

new Istanbul from the Pierre Loti Park
the Golden Horn looking towards the Galata area

the hill-slopes around the park is now one of

the biggest burial grounds in Istanbul

panoramic shots from Pierre Loti Park

the Golden Horn Bridge beyond which are the

Ataturk Bridge and the Galata Bridge

turkish coffee to perk us up in the cold weather....

the Eyup Sultan Mosque

Eyup Sultan had launched a massive seige of Constantinople

taking the instructions from Prophet Mohammed that

the biggest capital of Orthodox Christian must be conquered

he failed and died in battle and was buried here

his mausoleum is visitied by the faithfuls especially in Ramadan

which sounds like a 'keramat' to pakdokter...

one of the many cemeteries at the park

taking the cable-car down the hill park

the Pierre Loti Park from the road below

with the thousands of cemeteries along the hill-slope