We celebrated our 3rd anniversary of living as expats while we were in Istanbul. With a population of 14 million, Istanbul was by far the largest, noisiest and busiest place we visited this summer. Our home exchange was only two metro stops from most of the touristy stuff and we also did a large amount of walking. Although we got out and about in the city we also had a couple of down days with Allan and I both getting a stomach bug.
Galata Tower was our first stop, from here we weaved our way through the streets and across the main bridge where we could easily view the city. It was surprising the number of mosques that could be counted from the bridge alone.
Making our way to the spice bazaar followed by the grand bazaar was an experience in itself. With the constant offers to sample food and buy products it was quite a bit of fun. The best line I heard was, "If you want to spend your money, I can show you some ideas." After choosing a selection of Turkish Delight and dried fruit, we found a spot to nibble on our treats.
While in Istanbul we visited the Archaeology Museum, the Aya Sofya, Topkapi Palace and the Blue Mosque. The Archaeology Museum was similar to other museums we have visited although had more items from the late bronze age 1650 - 1200 BC, and artifacts from the Hittite Period which was pretty interesting.
The Topkapi Palace also had some interesting stuff, that people literally cued to see even though they are more than likely not real such as Moses staff and Davids sword. Allan did sneak a photo of each even though we weren't supposed to. It was interesting that the Topkapi Palace seemed to present items that were of significant religious value to both Christians and Muslims. During our time in Turkey we became used to listening to the early morning, afternoon and evening prayers, at the Topkapi Palace we were there during the afternoon prayer and saw the Koran being read with an English translation (fascinating and a little bit scary).
Taylor and I were required to cover up when we visited the Blue Mosque. Once again it was fascinating to see how the mosque ran. Men praying up the front, no seats anywhere and woman down the back behind screens and doors.
The weather had been hot and perfect all summer, except for the day we caught the ferry to Princess Island on the edge of the Black Sea. Although we didn't swim, we did enjoy the boat trip and walking around the island looking at the stalls and avoiding all of the horses and bikes.
We were certainly thankful to visit Istanbul, but it's wasn't the highlight of our Turkish adventure, a little bit noisy and busy for us.
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