Our first tour was Topkapi Palace. This is an old Sultan's palace. Looks a little like Cinderella's castle at Disneyland, no (see first picture below)?
One of the buildings on these grounds holds the Spoonmaker's Diamond which is an 86 carat pear shaped diamond. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take pictures of it, but it was HUGE!This is a picture from Topkapi Palace looking down on the fortress wall and Bosporus or the Istanbul Strait. Did you know that part of Istanbul is in Europe and part of it is in Asia? Weird, hey? One city sits in two continents and is separated by this Strait.
I had to take a pic of the hydrangeas because they are one of my favorite flowers.
The Blue Mosque with it's 6 minarets. I just realized you can only see 4 of them in these pictures. I have one later on that shows all 6.
We took a bus to Taksim Square which reminded me a lot of Robson Street in Vancouver.
Instead of taking the bus back, we decided to walk the million miles back to the hotel. Just kidding, but we did walk for about 5 km before jumping on the tram back to our hotel. Why I'm not a size 2 after this trip, I don't know. Walking did allow us to take a lot of nice night shots, though.
The next day we headed to the Grand Bazaar (pictures 1 and 2 below). It was very cool and had some beautiful things for sale, however, after being in Thailand and Malaysia where you can get things for dirt cheap, I only ended up buying 2 rings as souvenirs.
Picture 3 above - out to eat
I had to take a pic of the hydrangeas because they are one of my favorite flowers.
The Blue Mosque with it's 6 minarets. I just realized you can only see 4 of them in these pictures. I have one later on that shows all 6.
We took a bus to Taksim Square which reminded me a lot of Robson Street in Vancouver.
Instead of taking the bus back, we decided to walk the million miles back to the hotel. Just kidding, but we did walk for about 5 km before jumping on the tram back to our hotel. Why I'm not a size 2 after this trip, I don't know. Walking did allow us to take a lot of nice night shots, though.
The next day we headed to the Grand Bazaar (pictures 1 and 2 below). It was very cool and had some beautiful things for sale, however, after being in Thailand and Malaysia where you can get things for dirt cheap, I only ended up buying 2 rings as souvenirs.
Picture 3 above - out to eatPicture 4 above - time for some apple tea (pretty much the same as our apple cider)
The next day we took a tour of Hagia Sophia which used to be a church, then a mosque and is now a museum. There are so many beautiful mosaics in this place that my neck was sore from looking up the whole time we were in there.
Unfortunately, from the last picture above you can see that there is a huge scaffolding in the center of it which stopped us from getting a picture to show you how large it is. Trust me, this place was huge and very beautiful. It's so hard to imagine them being to build something this big back in those days with the limitation of tools they had back then. Well done!
Another picture with the Blue Mosque in the background (still only showing 4 minarets).
Here you can see (picture 2 below) all 6 minarets from the roof of our hotel.
From Istanbul we wanted to go down the coast of Turkey. We went to a travel agent and they booked us on an overnight bus. Our travel agent, Fatih (pronounced Fat-TY) took us out for the evening and showed us what a Hookah (aka ShiSha or Water pipe) is.
I didn't know what the heck I was doing but it was fun to try and no, I didn't develop a nicotine addiction from it. :) Thanks, Fatih for a fun night out in Istanbul.
The next day we took a tour of Hagia Sophia which used to be a church, then a mosque and is now a museum. There are so many beautiful mosaics in this place that my neck was sore from looking up the whole time we were in there.
Unfortunately, from the last picture above you can see that there is a huge scaffolding in the center of it which stopped us from getting a picture to show you how large it is. Trust me, this place was huge and very beautiful. It's so hard to imagine them being to build something this big back in those days with the limitation of tools they had back then. Well done!
Another picture with the Blue Mosque in the background (still only showing 4 minarets).
Here you can see (picture 2 below) all 6 minarets from the roof of our hotel.
From Istanbul we wanted to go down the coast of Turkey. We went to a travel agent and they booked us on an overnight bus. Our travel agent, Fatih (pronounced Fat-TY) took us out for the evening and showed us what a Hookah (aka ShiSha or Water pipe) is.I didn't know what the heck I was doing but it was fun to try and no, I didn't develop a nicotine addiction from it. :) Thanks, Fatih for a fun night out in Istanbul.
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