Monday, May 12, 2014

More Istanbul...



Erdinç Tunçbİlek was our guide in Istanbul.

We had a wonderful two days in Istanbul in spite of the rain, largely because Erdinc (I’m going to ignore the Turkish letters only because it’s such a hassle in Word!) has done such a great job of guiding us through Istanbul. But we have WALKED! We’ve seen every sight we wanted to see and Erdinc has done a masterful job of getting us to the front of the line if he could, and if he couldn’t, he made it as interesting as it could be to stand in line in the rain! I think he knows everything; there wasn’t a question we threw at him that he couldn’t answer. Everything from history to culture (why are only some women wearing a veil?), he was able to give us the answer.

Possibly the only disappointment was the Chora Church (Museum), the mosaic church. That was possibly because most of it was closed for renovation. Although I do have to say that the cathedral in St. Louis (US) has what I consider to be the most fabulous examples of mosaic art in the US and possibly the world.

Rain really does dampen (sorry! Couldn’t resist!) one’s enjoyment of a city. For two days, everywhere we went, we had to have our rain jackets and, finally we bought cheap umbrellas (5 Turkish Lira, about US$2.50; Randy’s lasted one day, mine is still going—he bought another) and I think umbrellas have it over rain jackets. We stood in line in the rain, looked at sights in the rain, but at least we were able to eat lunch out of the rain.

Erdinç took us to the Spice Market to his “favorite” place where he could “trust” the merchants. Well, we bought Turkish Delight to take on the river boat (prepare to eat lots of Turkish Delight, Kathy, Ken, Greg, and Yolanda!) and some spices to bring home to make meatballs. We also bought a small box of Turkish Delight that, if it makes it home, goes to the people who made this trip possible: Laura, Steve, and Helene.

If you’ve never had a Turkish Delight (and I had not), you are in for a treat. They tend to hand out these candies everywhere, but, according to our “trusted” seller, those are the cheap imitations. HE had the real deal! Anyway, we bought (literally) his line and got some pistachio and pomegranate Turkish Delight as well as a few other flavors. And I bought some spices (“meatball” spices, his very own recipe) that smelled luscious!

We have, I swear, walked to every sight in the city!

It is now Monday and the weather has finally cleared and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. We’ve met our boatmates (I think it’s a boat, we don’t have our admiral any more to tell us which is which!), lots of Aussies, lots of Americans, and a smattering of others. Of course a lot are only going as far as Vienna and we’ll pick up more in Vienna to go to Amsterdam.

Did the city tour to all the places we’ve been before and to a carpet factory where we were presented with a showman for a salesman who did the whole Turkish (including a flying carpet) carpet show.

Rolling our the first of about 50 carpets

Some of our group watching

The showman

More carpets. The layers of carpet are growing!

The flying carpet.

The carpet we bought. 2x3 feet.
We also did a fabulous—albeit very, very touristy—Turkish Show (that’s the name, Turkish Show) with four belly dancers in ascending order of quality, finishing with Esme, who, our guide Doc said, is THE best in Turkey. Personally I thought #3 was the best.

Another tour this morning followed by a flight to Bucharest. Because the weather has finally cleared it was great doing a river cruise along the Bosporus. We won’t arrive in Bucharest until after 8pm so I have no idea what we’ll do for dinner. The flight is only an hour so for sure we won’t get a meal!

Some photos from our stay in Istanbul:

In the spice shop with the salesman and our guide.

In the Basilica Cistern. Note the fish swimming.




You put your thumb in the hole (very hygienic!) and rotate your hand around and your wish will be fulfilled!

The Romans were afraid of Medusa so they put the column on top of her.
One of the many, many cisterns still existing in Istanbul, this one has been converted to a restaurant. We wanted to eat here, but just ran out of time to do all we wanted to do.



 From the Archeological Museum:


I think this was Alexander The Great's tomb (except it isn't, they just used to think it was because it was so ornate.). Or maybe it's somebody else's tomb, they are all starting to run together at this point!

This is for Kathy's horse (or ex-horse, depending on whether she has been able to sell him). Some things never seem to change!



Other things that never change, stray dogs getting pregnant!

Our Uniworld guide, "Doc"

This is pretty much the story of our time in Istanbul.


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