Day 5- The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts

The hippodrome was a little disappointing so I was beyond delighted when we discovered that the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts happened to be located right next door. Although I wanted to visit this museum, it was low on our list of priorities because well... it's a museum... of Islamic arts... and Booker and Ike are not exactly lovers of the Islamic arts... at least not yet. But we happened to be in the right place at the right time, so we headed inside.

I suppose I shouldn't speak for Clark and the boys, but here's what I think everyone will remember from this museum:

Ike: Puppy dog. Doggy kisses for Ike.

Booker: There was a cute bulldog who kept slurping us. Oh and some ruined carpets.

Clark: Ike is really heavy and also where can I adopt one of those Turkish bulldogs? (They confiscated our baby backpack when we entered so Clark had to carry him on his shoulders the entire time. Someone had to protect all those Islamic treasures from the Ikenator).

Margaret: Awesome examples of illuminated Qurans and crazy cool carpets.

I'm so glad my kids' memories of Istanbul will be of fish and dogs and not of illuminated manuscripts and calligraphy. Reason #5423 to leave your little kids at home when traveling to culturally and historically rich cities anywhere.

Anyways, the museum happens to be the former palace of Ibrahim Pasha who was Suleiman the Magnifcient's Grand Vizier. It was built in 1524. So the building itself was kind of cool. It's a treasure house of beautiful objects, some from the Ottoman period (14th to 20th centuries), the Seljuk period (11th to 13th centuries) and some even as early as the 8th century. We saw some amazing examples of calligraphy and the carpets were impressive not only because of their age but because of their size.

I just wish the museum staff would have cooled their jets a little bit. Obviously they don't get a lot of kid visitors, so I understand why they were a little nervous about Booker and Ike being there. But why did they keep shushing me and Clark when we wanted to talk to each other? One security guard followed us room to room (even though each room had it's own guard) to make sure we were being quiet and you know, not carving our names into the inlaid wood or smashing the ancient porcelain vases. Awesome collection, really uptight staff.