Saturday 14th April - Istanbul

The more time I spend in Turkey, the more I get to love it.
Today our group had a walking tour around the major tourist sights in the city. First stop was the Hippodrome with the Serpent Column and the Egyptian Obelisk before crossing the road to the Blue Mosque. This place is huge with perfectly landscaped gardens inside its walls and an enormous courtyard entrance. You have to remove your shoes to go inside and the smell of stinky feet is really overpowering as you walk in. No surprises to find its enormous inside too and theres a million and one prayer mats covering the floor but no-one was praying while we were there. As we left the building the first thing you see is Aya Sofia Museum which is our next stop. This was another awesome and huge building only spoilt by some floor to ceiling scaffolding erected for repairs some 18 YEARS ago...


Before lunch we went down to the Underground Cistern which apparently is really old but was only re-discovered in 1930! There were fish swimming under the raised walkways and a couple columns with upside down heads down the bottom of them. Nice place to wander round and there's even a stage and floor set up for weddings and receptions...


Topkapi Palace was our next adventure and once again, inside these walls were more spectacular gardens and tiled walls. There are alot of rooms and buildings within these walls and you could easily spend a day looking at them all if you were able however beware - a coffee at the cafe costs about $10!!


Last official stop of the day was what was sposed to be a twilight tour of the Bosphorous but as we got there at 4pm, the sun was hardly on its way down... We still got to have a good look at the European and Asian sides of the river (Istanbul is the only city to span two continents) and enjoy a beer or two on the way. One of the staff thought Petey was my husband and was trying to buy me... Whats worse is that I think Petey was trying to sell me too...


Back on land some of us ventured down to the Grand Bazaar for a looksee and some Turkish Delight. I'd never been a big fan of Turkish delight but maybe I've just had the wrong stuff. Here, its lovely!! This is a very organised market place and while the men still harrass you to come and buy their goodies, they are not rude or annoyingly persistant.
After dinner, 5 of us went to a lovely little establishment down the road from our hotel to try some "sheesha" or - as Petey calls the water pipe - "the hubble bubble"... This is kinda like smoking but through a pipe and its flavoured. Ours was a strawberry one and for 10 turkish lire we spent the next hour puffing away in fits of giggles at how silly we looked. The Blue Mosque was lit up in the background from where we sat and topped off an excellent day.