Istanbul and the Bosphorus cruise- 10 April 2011

Georgie arrived in Istanbul on Saturday. Her flight was diverted from Sabiha Gocken airport, where I was waiting,due to massive thunderstorms, to Ataturk airport- 2 hours on the other side of town. With very limited phone contact, finally I got there, and luckily she was waiting. We got home at midnight- welcome to Turkey!! quite a stressful few hours- thunderstorms and rain, no contact- a lot of mental telepathy happening!.

Driving throught the narrow streets
you can literally reach out and touch the shops

 On Sunday we went on a sightseeing bus tour around the main part of the city, the old walled section, as well as along the Golden Horn. It was freezing in the partially open topped bus and at one stage began to hail- luckily the sides rolled down on the top deck! otherwise it would have been very breezy!

Part of the vast stretch of wall

 There is still much of the wall built by Theodosius II in 413!!! surrounding the old part of the city.

Church of Saint Stephen of the Bulgars
made completely of cast iron,, in Vienna in
1871 and shipped to Istanbul to be erected.
It was needed for the Bulgarian community.
It is still used by them today.

Part of the ancient wall

One of the amazing 2500 mosques that
dot the city skyline 

The modern day entrance through the ancient
city walls

After completing our wizz round Istanbul we then boarded ferry to take a cruise up the Bosphorus. There are day trips to the Black Sea and you can have lunch in a quaint little village, but we opted for the 2 hour criuse only as the day was cold and not condusive to sitting  eating fish in a little restaurant.

The cruise gave us a wonderful view of some of the beautiful buildings built along the Bosphorus by the Ottomans. We were also able to see the size of some of the vast container ships that sail to and from from the Black Sea countries.

Dolmabache Palace- built 1856
 by Ottoman Sultan

Sailing under the First Bosphorus Bridge-
connects East and West

Not sure what, but liked the look of it!

Looks a wee bit French to me!

Closer of Dolmabache Palace

Wouldn't be bad for a Summer house,
they like to leave the heat of the city then.

Daytime view from hotel terrace

Night time view from hotel

Blue mosque at night- very dodgey photo!!

Aya Sophia at night - also very dodgey photo

After our cruise on the Bosphorus, we stayed the night in a small hotel in Sultanahmet ( on the European side) because we were meeting our coach to take us to Gallipoli at 6.30 am on Monday. We had dinner in a lovely restaurant called Mozaic in Sultanahmet before walking back to our hotel. From the roof top terrace there was a wonderful view of part of the city and Bosphorus.

Got up early, caught the tram down the hill and set off on our 5 day trip down the Aegean. Next instalment not too far away.