Our next stop was Istanbul. We were blessed with PERFECT weather for our entire trip, except in Istanbul. This was quite unfortunate because we did most of our site-seeing on foot and got totally soaked. We ended up paying some street vendor WAY too much money for 2 crappy umbrellas in order to keep somewhat dry for the rest of the day. But, despite the rain, Istanbul had a LOT to see and we made a lot of ground in a matter of about 7 hours.
We visited the Blue Mosque (I believe its one of the biggest in the world), the ancient underground Cisterns, perused the HUGE & 'very easy to get lost in' Grand Bazaar, ate lunch in an authentic Turkish restaurant and later enjoyed a snack in a beautiful park. The only "big thing" we didn't get a chance to see was Haggia & Sophia" (its a HUGE historical museum/mosque). Overall, Istanbul was a beautiful, very busy and fascinating city and tough to see in a day. But we did and we loved it. The Grand Bazaar was where we got most of our souvenirs and gifts and although we found some great stuff, we were both EXHAUSTED by the time we left. The Turkish vendors are so IN YOUR FACE the WHOLE time and it got tiring saying, "No thank-you."
I must say if I had the chance to go back and see the city at a better pace, I probably would. I'm sure there was so much more to see.
4 comments:
Question for ya...did you find the language barrier hard, or did you guys get around fine without knowing Turkish?!!
Looks like so much fun Bonnie! I remember studying some of those places in Art History-- your pictures looks like the ones in the textbooks! One of these days Doug and I are going to have to take a trip down there!
nice pictures bon-bon. good thing you got the right ones up this time ;)
Bon,
Grat pics. I especially loved the ones that had gardens. It must have been tough to be in these places for such a short time. One of the things I loved most about NZ was that we got to live there and travel about as it just happened. That made it so awesomely relaxed for me. After that experience, I find it a bit hard to travel just for the sake of traveling anymore. I just want to go somewhere great and live. Did you feel the same or was it a totally different scene on the cruiseship? (I guess that would make a huge diff. One of the things I don't like about traveling is all the unpacking and packing when you have to go/ leave somewhere.
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