2014 Biking Turkey Daily Snippet

21 October, Istanbul
Haci Mimi Apartment 53TL

“One of the last mosques built in Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire, the Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque was built for the Sultana ... wife of Sultan Mahmud II and mother of Sultan Abdülaziz. It was designed by the Italian architect Montani ... [and] finished in 1871” (Wikipedia). This very pretty mosque is not advertised in our guide book, but should be. The exterior stone work is stunning, and while the interior walls are painted and patterned, the colours are so muted and soft, the overall impact is peaceful. From here we walked to the Roman era Valens Aqueduct. Wikipedia: “Completed by Roman Emperor Valens in the late 4th century AD, it was maintained and used by the Byzantines and later the Ottomans ... The surviving section is 921 metres long, about 50 metres less than the original length ... The Valens aqueduct ... was merely one of the terminal points of this new wide system of aqueducts and canals – which eventually reached over 250 kilometers in total length, the longest such system of antiquity – that stretched throughout the hill-country of Thrace and provided the capital with water. Once in the city, the water was stored in three open reservoirs and over a hundred underground cisterns, such as the Basilica Cistern, with a total capacity of over 1 million cubic meters.” Here’s the thing about Istanbul: everywhere you go, there is more to see than anticipated. Near the aqueduct we photographed an unexplained statue in a park and then admired from the outside only the ribbed minaret of the Burmali Mosque across the road.