Istanbul July 5-July 10, 2005 July 5         Arrive in Istanbul July 6         Faced with the impossibility of describing Istanbul adequately within the limits of this brief introduction, and consoled by the knowledge that you will all purchase one or more of the many good guidebooks available (the best being the Blue Guide to Istanbul), I will content myself here with merely noting our daily destinations.  Since admission is free to working mosques (including Sulemaniye and the Blue Mosque) and it isn’t appropriate to enter them as a group, these are places for people to see on their own.         All the major attractions of Istanbul are within 15 minutes’ walk of our hotel.  This morning we’ll walk first to Agia Sophia, one of the most important buildings in world history and arguably the most architecturally significant structure, and then to Topkapi Palace, from 1462 until 1854 the imperial residence of the Osmanli sultans.  Once inside the Palace, we’ll arrange for a guided tour of the Harem, the 400-room complex in which the Sultan lived with his mother, wives, concubines, and eunuchs.  For those who want to spend the entire day at Topkapi, there is a restaurant and cafeteria.  For others, there is something of interest everywhere you turn in Istanbul; for example, an underground cistern with hundreds of columns, dating from the time of Justinian, just opened last year a few feet from our hotel.         Every night in Istanbul there will be an opportunity to visit one of the unique restaurant areas, especially Cicek Pasaji (the Flower Passage) and Kumkapi, in both of which Gypsy troubadour bands compete in delightful cacophony.  July 7         Today we’ll take our bus on a tour of the sights and monuments of Istanbul, stopping at the Kariye Museum (or Chora Church), the finest collection of Byzantine mosaics and frescoes in the world.  July 8         After lunch we’ll go to the museum complex in the grounds below Topkapi Palace.  The Museum of the Ancient Orient has a distinguished collection of Sumerian art and inscriptions, part of the Great Wall of Babylon, a section of Hammurabi’s law code, and the world’s first recorded peace treaty, the Treaty of Kadesh.  Almost all tours (but ours) inexplicably omit the Archaeological Museum, which the opening of several new wings in July 1991 transformed from an interesting collection of sarcophagi to one of the world’s major museums.  Especially noteworthy are the parallel chronological sequences comparing Troy with Anatolian civilization, and Cyprus with Palestine and Syria, as well as many rooms filled with treasures from Ephesus, Miletus, and other sites. July 9         We’ll charter a ship to take us up the Bosphoros. Shortly after passing Dolmabahce Palace, we'll stop at the quaint upscale village Ortakoy for lunch.  On our return we can visit the Egyptian Bazaar (the Spice Bazaar) and the old shopping district of Istanbul. July 10         Departure day, or continue on to Central Turkey and the Black Sea (T4).