The Blue Mosque at night time
One of many stray cats in Istanbul
Inside the Aya Sofya
The Blue Mosque by day
The Mosaics Museum
Another mosque on our journey... who is that lonely tourist...
Ummm Turkish tea! I think we drank Turkey out of this
Turkish Baklava - pastry rolled in pistachio
Basilica Cistern
The Medusa inside the Cistern
Inside Topkapi Palace
Me outside the shop that made the very first Turkish Delight many years ago
Check out the local fisherman... so many rods!
Belly dancing costumes
The Turkish Bath! I'm lucky to have come out of that alive!
Us and the Black Sea after our tour on the Bosphorus
Simon and one of his trusty kebabs
Check out the dancer in white in the background. Apparently these are very traditional dancers... they just spin around, and around, and around....
A kiwi guy and his Polish girlfriend that we made friends with... then he rolled his ankle on our way home after too many local beers...Flying out of Heathrow Terminal 5 was an absolute breeze. Don't know what all the fuss has been about? Awesome terminal with lots of nice shops and restaurants and security is a lot more decked out for the number of people that are actually in this country.
After a four hour flight, we arrived in Istanbul expecting to be picked up by someone from our Hotel. Instead it was obviously a young kid who was rushing around trying to pick up lots of other people, but of course their flights were delayed, so he was like "10 more minutes", about 10 times! After about an hour we said to him, don't worry mate, we'll find our own way. The Lonely Planet said you shouldn't pay more than 25 Turkish Lira to get from the airport to the city, but the cheapest any taxi driver was offering, was 85 Lira! Ahh, this was our first experience of the lovely Turks ripping off tourists! In the end we decided to mission it on our own using the public transport. We caught the light railway to somewhere and then changed onto the main tram through the city. Pretty straight forward really and only 1.40 Lira each. Bargain!
Our time in Istanbul was mainly spent visiting Mosques, eating kebabs and Turkish delight and then suffering from dodgy food later on. Oh, and of course the shopping through the famous Bazaar's. You should see how many trinkets I've come back with!
The food was such a contrast really, as I think we ate some of the dodgiest meals ever, but then we also had our best meal out I think for years!
We did brave it in the Turkish baths (hamman)... not sure I can go into detail of my experience as I'm not sure who will be reading this. But for those brave enough to hear, email us and I'll write you back the whole story. Oh, I think I'm going to have a nightmare just thinking about it again.
Enjoy the photos and we'll bring some Turkish Delight home for everyone at xmas xoxo
