ISTANBUL (Turkey) – sailing into this really historic harbour (the city once known as Constantinople) was very picturesque with its huge mosques everywhere you looked, beautiful old buildings and, of course, the Topaki Palace, with its grounds that went forever. Went solo with our touring today and whilst walking to the Blue Mosque, ‘picked up’ a tour guide (unbeknownst to us) who started his spiel, convincing us that he was just heading in that direction, didn’t want any money and wasn’t going to take us to his shop! The penny dropped and I had to feign illness to ‘lose’ him….. Colin reminded me that I should have brought a head scarf to enter the Mosque but it turned out I didn’t need one and HE had to wear a skirt to cover his knees!! Inside the Blue Mosque was something to behold with over 20,000 blue tiles covering the ceiling, with beautiful stained glass windows all around, unfortunately the photos don’t do it justice. We then literally walked the streets and took in all the fabulous sights, including carpet shops!! Arrived at the Grand Bazaar & it must be the biggest market place in the world – over 4,000 shops & all nicely presented, but there must have been 1,000 gold shops, 1,000 silver shops, 1,000 carpet shops and the other thousand would have been made up of clothes, materials and souvenirs. It was Saturday too, so it was chaotic. We also sat in a tiny little café and ordered Turkish Coffee and Turkish Delight – the coffee was like mud (of course they give you a small glass of water to wash it down but we didn’t want to drink the water) but the Turkish Delight was yummy!! Got a few bargains and had a great day.
Photos above are: one of the many Mosques to be seen as we sailed into Istanbul; Colin in his skirt inside the Blue Mosque; beautiful blue tiles in the dome & on the ceiling; clever vendor who made taking your ice-cream very difficult; Colin sipping Turkish Coffee; inside the Grand Bazaar; on our balcony after a long, hot day.
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