We flew in quite late and took a shuttle bus, driving extraordinary speed to our hostel. We had booked a six man room for five people so we woke one poor sop up when we trundled in at 3:30 in the morning.
We were woken around 5 to the startling sounds of a city being called to prayer. The mosques are not in sync and so the echoing reverberations wind their way through the tiny back streets rousing the most insistent sleepers from their nights rest.
Several hours later when the sun had risen and the call to prayer had been replaced with sounds of bustling activity we got up, perhaps not refresh but indescribably happy to be where we were.
The hostel was a four-story townhouse and like most other buildings in the area had a large terrace type roof which served as both a hang-out area and the breakfast room. As breakfast was included with our hostel stay, we woke up every morning to fresh buns, cucumber, tomato and cheese, jams and nutella, honey, and either a hard boiled egg or cereal as well as olives... We could have as many buns as we wanted and like a lot of the other bread we found here, the buns were sprinkled with tasty poppy seeds.
This is our nice clean room, 3 sets of bunk beds and a collection of lock boxes were the decor. I think at this moment they were having some serious lock issues.... The boy rooming with us was a great guy, a Aussie(sorry) who'd been traveling Turkey for quite a while we spent a couple evenings together enjoying beer and shisha and we also went on the boat tour, more about that later....
The first morning we got our tourist pants on and headed out for a day of siteseeing. Our hostel was located very centrally, about a 10 minute walk from the Blue Mosque but since this was our first day we did a little exploring. We first walked down to the water on the side of the peninsula that faces towards the Marmara Sea. The fisherman were out, and all along the water were small two wall shelters. We could not decide whether the homeles maybe used the shelters or they were for the fishermen mainly.
Though the water looks crystalline, upon closer inspection it is rather filthy. This did not deter the one man we saw swimming that first morning though..... The weather was beautiful, not to hot, not to cold and definitely a pleasant change from the chill that Switzerland has been developing...
Relaxing by the water. Don't know if we really needed a break yet, we'd only walked down a hill...
We walkd up and around the peninsula and on our way we found one man who seemed to have set up a permanent camp and he had taken in a whole family of cats. I only caught three here but at one point six of them were up preening for us in the morning sun.
Rachel and Bianca, my swiss family, ha, enjoying a chance to wear the shades.
Shannon was waiting for the rest of us.
We walked through a very pretty park on the was up to the Topkapi Palace. On the way through the gate we were met coming to other direction by innumerable cop cars, the first of which stopped, asked us where we were from, said welcome, shook all our hands and felt one of Shannon's dreads.... We weren't sure what to make of it..
Shannon and Steve.
This was a fortune telling machine! We didn't stop but i tried to snap some stealth pictures as we walked by.
The main gate to the palace.
Once inside the palace, we purchased another ticket to enter the Harem, which proved to be a good idea, it was full of beautiful things....
Inside the harem all surfaces were embellished. Hundreds of different types of tiles and finishes, gold inlay, cobbled paths, stained glass and beautiful architecture were combined in this set of buildings in a way that i had never seen before.
Which one does not belong?
Bianca and Dave on a palace terrace.
This is not the Blue Mosque, but the one across the street from it. Also towering and beautiful.
The grand bazaar was a delight for every sense, possibly to the point of overload. There were people everywhere. Shop keepers legitimately hawking their wares. Only one man asked if I was looking for a husband, other than that Rachel Bianca and I stuck together admiring the craftmanship of all the beautiful things in that market. The uilding itself was huge and the aura spilled out into the surrounding streets which were also packed with everything from clothes to water pipes, turkish delight, leather jackets, really anything you could imagine.
This was one of my favorite booths, really catches and holds the imagination....
We were feeling a little parched after making it through the jewlery section unscathed and decided to stop for the very popular apple tea. It's very good. quite sweet. I'm fairly certain there are the real apple teas and then a lt of small food places just use a mix powder which is actually fairly toxic. those ones are very sweet.
Inside the courtyard of the blue mosque.
We were asked to cover our heads and shoulders inside the building. I had never been in a mosque before but the main dome is left open on the inside as a beautifully detailed, cavernous space.
Rachel, Bianca, Caitlin , Shannon and Steve.
The yellow building on the left was our hostel. Cute street huh?
These bread rings were everywhere, coated in sesame and only 60 lyra cents ie 40 regular cents. Very good treat. Mostly they were in little wheel around carts but we saw at least two guys like this one, the first of which almost got hit by a car while selling us one....
Day two we took a couple hour boat trip up the Bosphorus towards the black sea. The city scape was beautiful. Old buildings, the traditional waterfront homes and gorgeous towering mosques scattered throughout.
The crew, a little windblown but happy!
I felt that this one was well timed.
After about an hour upstream we were let off to wander around for about a half hour on the Asian side of the straight. Checked off a whole other continent that day.
We were in need of some sustenance after the boat and headed up to the Spice Bazaar to find some food and do a little more exploring.
Every spice and dried anything that oyu could imaginge could be found here. The colors were vibrant, the smells intoxicating and the bustle was quite a bit less intense than the Grand Bazaar.
Taking a break on our way back to the hostel.
The night we got to sit in an outdoor restaurant ( they made smoking water pipes indoors illegal) and watched one man demonstrate the whirling dervish.
Day 3 we got on another boat and headed out to the Princes Islands were we rented some bikes and di our own little tour. It was an incredibly touristy place and apparently the horse drawn carriages were the number one attraction.
This square held hundreds of horses. and as we made our way around the other side we found ourselves working our way in the wrong direction against throngs of eager carriage goers. I though it was a little ridicuous but maybe that what you do on the weekends there...
This girl was selling flower circlets to the passersby.
Dont' worry I asked before I took her picture.
On the water were we had the potential to bath but the intensity of green algea and the floating garbage proved deterrent enough.
The sunset on the way back from the islands.
Our flight home was a 3:30 in the morning arriving in Basel around 7. Rachel and I headed home to drop our stuff and then straight into Zurich for work. No sleep makes for an interesting work day, but i wouldn't trade Istanbul for anything.....
