Following our morning visit to Topkapı Palace we headed over to the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum. This museum featured many Islamic items such as tiles and rugs....
...and a cafe that offered a training program to become a Turkish Coffee Connoisseur. How could we pass that opportunity up?!
We started our course by learning about the process of roasting coffee beans (and even got to roast some). Next we used a hand held coffee grinder to grind the beans for our coffee. We even got to add flavors such as mastic, cinnamon, cardamon, and cloves. It was actually a bit tiresome to hand grind the beans.
After producing enough grounds we added them to our cezve (the little pot with a handle) with cold water and placed it on the sandy heating stove.
Once the coffee begins to boil we poured half of the coffee into our cups. The remainder of the coffee gets reboiled and added to our cups about 30 seconds later. This process allows just enough foam to develop on the top of the coffee. Following this we were able to enjoy our coffee on the terrace with some Turkish Lokum.We even received our very own certificates for successfully completing the program!
After we felt sufficiently caffeinated we journeyed to the Yeni Camii (New Mosque) in the Eminonu district near the Galata Bridge. With it's great location and beautiful architecture it quickly became one of our favorite mosques in the city. The mosque had a lively courtyard and we were able to catch a glimpse of the everyday worship life of the patrons.
The striking interior rivals that of the Blue Mosque.
Did I mention how lively the area was? It was incredibly crowed between the mosque and the Galata Bridge that spans Golden Horn. Rob and I did purchase a couple of fish sandwiches from the boats shown on the far right in the photo below. They were pretty tasty too!
Finally, a view of the fishermen on the Galata Bridge looking toward the Beyoglu neighborhood and to the Galata Tower.
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