We first went to breakfast overlooking the Bosphorus Strait as and as usual in a foreign country, lots of healthy choices. There will be a video in the Video Page on the Blog that I will post towards the end of the trip.
After breakfast, the hotel arranged to a reliable, fixed
price taxi to the famous Grand Bazaar which is the largest and oldest shopping
center in Istanbul, founded during the Ottoman Empire.
Words cannot describe the maze of tiny walkways with so many
shops. See the pictures of the map of
the Bazaar below.
After that we took a tram abut 30 minutes to the base of
this huge bridge. We walked over the
bridge and then along the waterway to get to our boat which was to take us on a
3-hour cruise along the Bosphorus Strait which is a waterway dividing Europe
and Asia. It is interesting in that Istanbul
is on both sides of the strait so you could live in Istanbul and be in one of
two countries!
After the tour, we walked to our hotel as it was only a 30 minute
and was that a huge, huge mistake as the last part of the walk was up the steepest
hill we have ever walked. WE must have
stopped 12 time to make it to the top and our hotel.
A fun day – hope you enjoy the pictures and later on some
videos that we will post.
Night from Istanbul
