After that we headed to the oldest Turkish bath house called
the Ayasofya Hurrem Sultan Hamam, dating back to the 1500’s for a Turkish bath,
massage and when we got there, we found out that they had no room for us. So, we made a reservation for the day we get
back – should be fun.
We walked back a couple of block to a small, very long
street almost totally filled with restaurants and found one that had great
food. Again, we ate all kinds of food
for lunch, including octopus!
After that, we took a cab ride to the biggest palace and it
was called Dolmabance. It had been used
by Sultans (the rulers of Turkey for many years and was also used by a couple
of the Presidents when they stopped being governed by a Sultan. It was amazing – everywhere you looked it was
gold, gold and more gold.
Then we split up with Vera and Jeff. They went back to nap and we took a cab to
see the largest Mosque in Istanbul.
After almost being ripped off by the cab driver you tried to short
change us, we had to walk up this huge hill to get to the Mosque and we found
out that it was closed.
We found a cab down and had it take us to the big shopping
street that we had been to a couple of days ago but it started raining so we
took a cab back to the hotel, and had an hour before meeting Jeff and Vera at
8:30pm to go to dinner.
Dinner in an area called the fish market; however, we never
did see the fish market but there certainly were a lot of little small restaurants. We picked out one we thought we would like
and did we have great service and great food, including octopus, anchovies, 4
other appetizers, then sea bass and lamb meat balls. It was fun once again sharing our food with
Jeff and Vera.
Then we took a cab back to the hotel and once again sat in
the lounge until it closed at midnight.
It was a memorable day.
Tomorrow we are picked up at the hotel and taken to the ship at 11:00am
so we will probably sleep in for a little and then get ready to go. It is going to be a fun cruise.
Night from Istanbul
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| The Synagogue |
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| Lunch at the Babyonia on the corner |
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| A great lunch |
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| Jeff and Vera at lunch with us |
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| The front door of the palace - it has 68 bathrooms, 254 rooms and is huge |
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| Ariel view of the biggest Mosque in Instanbul |
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| Lamb on a spit - it was good |
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| The start of our evening meal |
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| At diner |
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| Sea Bass |
