We woke up to grey skies and intermittent light rain! And so breakfast was inside (although the room was still open to the outside courtyard area). No harpist this morning, but the usual delicious array of food from which to choose.

As checkout was at 12, we left our packed bags in our room while we wandered down the street to the Hagia Sophia (Saint Sophia Mosque). The queue was not very long, and moved quickly once the gate opened a few minutes after we had arrived. Disappointingly, there is currently a huge scaffold erected on one side of the interior, detracting from the magnificence of the mosque and making it annoyingly difficult to take great photos! The Hagia Sophia “was originally built in 360 AD and for more than a thousand years was a Christian church. It belonged to the Orthodox Catholics for the whole time, except for a 57 year period between 1204 and 1261 when it was a Roman Catholic cathedral.”

“Sultan Mehmed invaded the city in 1453 and, upon capturing the building, declared immediately that it should be turned into a mosque. The tide shifted and the cultural makeup of the city was set in the direction that would lead it to modern times.”

“Today, Hagia Sophia is a museum. From the inside and the outside, it looks like a mosque and it’s hard to imagine the cathedral form. The low-hanging lights in the main hall add a glowing brilliance to the room, while the enormous dome is one of the best examples of Byzantine architecture. The high ceilings – higher than most religious shrines in the world – make you feel insignificant in the presence of a deity. ”

After our visit to Hagia Sophia, we strolled around the outskirts of the adjacent Blue Mosque. It was closed for prayers and not reopening to the public until 2:30pm — too late for us. Luckily, I had my umbrella, as it started to rain a little. A few Turkish shop keepers tried to make friendly conversation with us in an obvious attempt to lure us into their shops, but I’m afraid that a Turkish rug or carpet was not on our shopping list!

We checked out of the hotel at 12, accepting the offer for the receptionist to order a taxi for us. Michael had been under the misapprehension that a taxi ordered by the hotel would be a lot dearer than the standard rate. However, we were assured that the fare would be the same, and so we gratefully accepted the offer. When informed that it would arrive in about 20 minutes, Michael tried to determine whether it would be more efficient for us to drag our bags down the street and hail a taxi ourselves. The conversation was getting a little confusing, with the man talking about us catching the subway and Michael thinking he was talking about getting a taxi from near the subway station. Eventually, we just accepted that the best option was to wait.

By 12:30, the taxi hadn’t arrived and we were becoming a little anxious. We weren’t sure what was going on, but there were now no Uber taxis showing available online (apparently, 5 minutes earlier, there had been a couple available). One of the hotel staff phoned the taxi company again — we were assured that one was on its way. He then wheeled our bags out on to the street and waited with us until the taxi pulled up. We verified the amount (only 75 TL this time), and then loaded our bags into the car. The driver didn’t respond when I asked him if he spoke any English, and so I was glad we’d asked the young man from the hotel to confirm the rate for us! 

The half-hour journey to the airport was a bit hair-raising — the driver’s seat belt was broken and he had no qualms about using his mobile phone whilst driving at high speed! Grateful to have arrived with plenty of time to spare, we tipped him an extra 5TL for which he appeared very grateful.

Our luggage had to be scanned before we even entered the airport proper, and then once again after we had checked in. We found a lounge, but were advised that it was full and that we should head down to the other end of the building to another lounge where we waited until it was time to board. I was a little horrified when I realised that I was to sit next to a stranger for this flight to Jeddah. I remembered Michael checking with me to make sure I was happy with us both having window seats, one behind the other, but he hadn’t explained that on this flight there would be another seat next to each of us. Fortunately, it was only a 2.5-hour flight. It was a bit weird sitting next to a guy whose screen was showing two books — both the Qu’ran! Still, it was better than sitting next to a huge Arab man wearing one of those red and white tea towels on his head (he was sitting next to Michael!).

The scenery below was fascinating — much of it looked a little like a lunar landscape. The time passed with me alternating my attention between the view from the window and watching a movie (Three Peaks [a European movie with a frustrating ending — one has to guess what happened!] and The Leisure Seeker with Helen Mirren). 

We arrived in Jeddah at about 7:30pm. A VIP bus transported us and the other business class passengers from the plane to the terminal where we were ushered through various checkpoints to the transit area. At one checkpoint, men and women were separated, with women having to go into a private room to be screened. Unsure what to do, I stood by the line near the bag X-ray machine waiting for instructions. The three men sitting at this station just continued chatting with each other. Eventually, a young Muslim woman came along and told me just to go ahead and put my bags on the conveyor belt and then go into the adjacent room. Here, a few female officers were sitting chatting. One of them frisked my body and waved a detector over me. Having been cleared, I exited through the other door and collected my bags. The young Muslim woman who followed after me was a bit frustrated with the men when her bottle of sanitising lotion dropped underneath the table of rollers (where your bags come out of the X-ray machine). She waited for a moment or so, hoping to get the attention of the officials sitting nearby, but then gave up, commenting that they were clearly not interested in helping her. I left the area with a sense of women really being treated as irrelevant/unimportant to Muslim men.

Reunited with Michael, we found the lounge and settled in for a few hours. As the departure time approached, we became concerned, as the screen did not indicate which gate to go to. Between the two of us, we must have checked with the woman at the counter half a dozen times, but each time she simply reassured us that she would make an announcement when it was time to board. When the screen indicated that our flight was boarding, and then ‘final call’, our anxiety levels really started to go up! Michael double-checked with an official outside the lounge area, and was again told that the screen was wrong. It was good to have obtained a second opinion on the matter, but neither of us really felt relaxed until we were finally on board the plane. So anxious were we to make sure we didn’t miss the flight, we hurried off to the gate as soon as it was displayed on the board, not waiting until the announcement was made over the loud speaker! We caught the first bus out to the plane and were the first to board. We took off about 90 minutes after the scheduled departure time, never receiving any explanation for the delay. 

As it was almost midnight, and so I was anxious to get to sleep as soon as possible. The flight attendant took my dinner order, and as I didn’t really want to eat anything, she informed me that she would get it for me whenever I was ready for it. I settled down to ‘sleep’ soon after take-off. Michael ate his meal first and then donned his eye mask and quickly fell asleep too.