It was time to leave and travel on to Gebze's Coban Mustafapasa Cami, the old mosque in Selcuk that was the setting of several OHB paintings. Unfortunately, it was pouring and the streets were overrunning with water. We made a dash for the dolmus, and headed uphill to historic central Gebze, where we found the mosque and learned from Em about various Arabic inscriptions and architectural elements of the structure. We also ran into a guy who seemed to be affiliated with the mosque in some way, Zeki, who showed us around the turbe (tomb, of Coban Mustafapasa, the guy who built the mosque) and got us in to the balcony of the mosque. By that time though, we were soaked to the bone and not about to take our shoes off again, so we sent Matt in to report on the interior from the balcony. After he got back, we headed back to the street and picked up a bus to the train station. The bus was full of preteens, who whispered between themselves the entire ride about whether we were speaking English, Spanish, Russian or Arabic (Arabic?? Really???). Once at the station, we were really glad to dash on to the train and enjoy the scant warmth from the train heaters – we were still soaked to the bone and it was about 35 degrees Fahrenheit out, so from that standpoint were pretty miserable. Gebze was awesome though, and Eskihisar is situated just beautifully on the side of the Marmara, with a harbor full of small fishing boats and the Osman Hamdi Bey house museum fronting on the water. In like May, it'd be the perfect get-out-of-Istanbul daytrip. From the reactions of the people at the house, the mosque, and on the bus, it was clear that not many foreigners actually visit Gebze, which is a pity. It was gorgeous.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bonkano/4412860205/" title="102_3534 by Minnesota Globetrekker, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4412860205_6020577df1.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="102_3534" /></a>
Osman Hamdi Bey's seaside house
No comments:
Post a Comment