Tuesday 11 August

Today we leave Istanbul to go back to London after a full three day trip. The Internet in our hotel has been a bit inconsistent so I have not been able to do my blog daily. I will try and capture Istanbul all in this blog. What a busy three days it has been with so much walking, sightseeing and looking at the shops. What an interesting place and certainly a place that I have always wanted to visit. I have to say they do need our Enviroteam to go and visit and sort out the recycling situation. The areas around the Blue Mosque and the Sophia Museum had so much rubbish around them. I think in the night the local cats, dogs and birds get into the rubbish bins and pull everything out. That just does not help at all.

On the first day which was the Saturday we visited the Blue Mosque which is just up the road from our hotel. It is beautiful inside and this is where many of the local people go for their prayers. You can hear the calling for prayer all over the city and it sounds so amazing. We made sure that we were covered appropriately to show respect and I had a pashmina to cover my head.

One of the beautiful domes on the ceiling of the Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque. How gorgeous.

We met some lovely people who told us a little about the mosque and showed us what we needed to do. The Blue Mosque is in the Sultanahmet Square and is one of the Ottoman buildings. The foundations for the building were laid in 1609. Sultan Ahmed 1 was the person who wanted to build this new mosque and was the first person to dig
the ground with a pick axe. It has beautiful mosaic work with intricate detail and to think these have lasted all of the hundreds of years since.


Opposite the Blue Mosque is the Hagia Sophia Museum. This building was a mosque for 916 years and was made into a museum in 1935. It is the most important monument of the early Byzantine architectural history and the first two buildings on the site were damaged so it is now the third that we see here. Again a wonderful building which still has some parts under restoration presently.

Hagia Sophia Museum

After visiting these awesome buildings we then walked down to the area where the Grand Bazaar is. Oh my goodness so many people in the one place. It just seemed like all of Auckland were there looking at the goods for sale. The bazaar is like a great big market but there are streets and streets of stalls. Each street seems to have its specialty - for example a whole street of shoes, or handbags or dishes. So many things to see and buy if you want to. We just walked and walked
and looked and looked. Then off to see the Spice Bazaar , again even more people than the Grand Bazaar and I think you
could buy absolutely any spice that you could imagine.

Dishes at the Grand Bazaar

Again more walking back to the hotel past the
Blue Mosque and we arrived back after
walking solidly for around seven hours. It felt
really good even though my legs and feet were really tired.

We had a little rest and then out again to go for dinner. We passed lots of lovely looking restaurants and the owners were all out the front calling for us to go into their restaurant and eat there. We settled on a restaurant that had been recommended to us and went in there. We were lucky enough to be able to sit on the rooftop terrace which was wonderful. We could see the Bosphoros Sea. What a stunning
view.

Sunday 9 August

We were up ever so early to visit the Basilica Cisterns. We were even the first in the queue as my son Matt was determined that he was not going to wait too long. What a treat it was to go underground
and look at these. They have also been called the Underground Palace and they are the largest
of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul. There are two famous marble monuments which are thought to be the heads of the monuments that adorned Istanbul many years ago. The heads represent Medusa.

                                                        The Basilica Cisterns

After visiting the Basilica Cistern we then went in a van around to different hotels to pick up different people to then travel down to the wharf to go on a boat cruise. The cruise was on the Bosphoros Sea
which connects the Black Sea and separates Asia and Europe. It is such an interesting area and the guides told us all about it. The guides in all of the different places that we went to really have to know what they are talking about and be ready to answer questions from people who come from all over the world.


The boat stopped at the Kucuksu palace and we got out to have a wander through the palace and the lovely garden surrounding it. I took some lovely pictures as we cruised along. The crew put up a great big sun shade so that we did not get too sunburnt as we sat out on the boat's deck.

After our cruise we got off the boat and went for lunch by the Bridge. We walked over this
bridge - I think it was called the Galata Bridge towards the Galata Tower. By then I was so hot and quite tired but on we went. It was well over 30 degrees and there was just no shade. After we got off the bridge we climbed up some really steep roads until we got to the queue for the Galata Tower. There were so many people queuing up in the hot sun. I was a bit lucky because Mr Stuart stood in the sun and I was able to go under a tree and wait until the queue got to the area that was in the shade.  All of the time we were waiting I was looking up at the tower and thinking oh my goodness there will be a lot of steps inside there for me to climb. We climbed up some steps on the outside of the tower and then got to the ticket office where we needed to buy our tickets.
YAY there were lifts to take us to the very top of the tower and then just a few steps to climb until we could walk out on the outside of the tower. What an amazing view!!!!!!! I don't  really like heights but I was so proud of myself as I walked all around the outside and took photos.