Istanbul, Turkey

August, 2011

Since we had not been on a vacation in a while and our anniversary was coming up, we decided to spontaneously go to Istanbul for a 4 day weekend. We booked a room at the Sirkeci Konak hotel, which is a short walk from all of the major tourist attractions in the old town. The hotel was great, with lots of local charachter and turkish delight on your bed instead of mints. On our first day, we walked out and visited the Hagia Sofia and walked around the old town. The following day we hit the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar. Behind the Spice Bazaar we wandered the shops and eventually made our way to the Suleyman Mosque. The picutres of the black and coral ceiling and the stained glass are from inside that mosque. The next day was Sunday so we went to the new district. We took the tram to Taksim square and then walked down the Istiklal Street, the main shopping street in Istanbul, with all of the normal shops you would expect to find in any European city. Most of the shops were still closed bacause we got there fairly early. Down towards the end we came across the Galata tower, which gave us great views (and pictures) of the old town. We then walked across the Galata bridge (fishing seems to be a popular passtime) and then back to the hotel. On our last day, before our flight home we basically hung out outside the blue mosque and in the park around the Topkapi Palace. Lisa shared her kebap with the stray dogs and otherwise we mostly just watched the people.

The best kebap we ate was a the stand where I took the picture of the guy making it by hand. I took the picture early in the morning as we were walking to the Grand Bazaar. The most interesting thing we ate were some deep fried dough balls which they were selling on the side of the street covered in honey. Very tasty. We also happened to be there on the first day of Ramadan. The lines which formed outside restaurants at sundown were impressive (especially the places with the special Ramadan menus).