Pete and Chon's Euro Vacation: Istanbul

Day 43 (over half way now) and we leave busy Istanbul for the slower paced Greek islands. Istanbul was an amazing place where it takes only seconds to cross from the European continent to the Asian continent and back again. The city itself is large and reminds us of a large Asian city without the Asians. We stayed on the European and older side called Sultanahmet that is covered in roman buildings, mosques, old churches and lots of tourists.

Sultanahmet or Blue Mosque

Sultanahmet mosque on the left and Haghia Sofia on the right with old Roman wall near the shore

We went on two tours whilst in Istanbul as we had just over 5 days to explore the area. The first one was a boat ride to the Princes' Islands. We visited three of the islands where a lot of the local residents go for the summer, we explored the little villages, went swimming (in the Marmara Sea), had a horse and carriage ride and met some great friends from Amsterdam (Tom and Armine). We went out to dinner with our new Dutch friends in the fish market area and ended up sharing a large flounder like fish, which we were told was highly sought after and hard to find. The other tour we did was a cruise up the Bosphorus channel (the channel that separates Europe from Asia) to the Black Sea. We stopped at a couple of small fishing villages, visited a ruined castle and put our feet in the Black Sea as it was too cold to go swimming.

Taxi service on the Princes Island's

Our weird flounder like fish that we had for dinner

Dinner with our new Dutch friends Tom and Armine

Other sites we visited in Istanbul included the impressive Sultanahmet Mosque or Blue Mosque which had a blue stained glass windows and was still an active mosque. We visited Haghia Sophia, a church converted to a mosque then converted into a museum which is where Chon tapped an older woman on the shoulder with her pamphlet, whilst waiting in line to go in and the woman was trying to push in, to tell her with a teachers voice that the back of the line was over there. We were hounded at the Grand Bizaar and Spice Market with comments like "please come in and spend your money so I can spend some of my own" or "what are you looking for, it is in here" and when you say that I am just looking, they reply "well I am just selling". Another impressive site we visited was the Basilisca Cistern which was an ancient underground Roman water supply for the old city formerly known as Constantinople. We both loved Istanbul and would return if we ever get back to Europe.