Our hotel was near a district that had lots of restaurants and bars. The narrow roads hosted the cafe dining. At night, musicians would come around to entertain the dining customers. As you can see, we were bundled up for the cool weather (what a welcome change!).
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Russell and Lyra are enjoying a cup of Cay (pronounced Chai) in one of the little places we found in the Grand Bazar area. Soon after this photo, she bumped her head a there were many tears. However, for most of the trip Lyra had a great time exploring and wanderint with us!.
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Our hotel was built for the arrival of the Orient Express. As you can see, the decor has remained untouched for decades. On our last day, the lobby was turned into a movie/television set. Evidently, it is used for this quite often. We felt very welcome there. We met a nice couple of guys from Scotland. They were also in Istanbul for the first time and loving their visit..
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Here's a peek out one of the windows of the Aya Sofia (a church built in a 5-year period in the late 500s and then converted to a mosque in the 1400s). During Justinian's reign in the Roman Empire, Istanbul (then known as Costantinople) was established as the seat of the church. The Aya Sofia was built to demonstrate the power of the church and the Roman's. It is an engineering miracle. The mosque next to it, built nearly 1200 years later, still doesn't replicate the feat of engineering. Ever since converting this church to a mosque, the mosques in the Ottoman Empire took on this unique domed architecture. Their domes can be seen on the tops of every hill in Istanbul..
Here are some folks fishing of the Galata Bridge. Every day, the fishermen would cluster along the railing to fish for sardines and sea bass. In the background is Yeni Camii (which means New Mosque). It is "only" 400 years old..
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One day, we took a ferry ride up the Bosphorus toward the Black Sea. At the far end, the ferry stops for 3 hours. We took a hike up a hill to a castle/fortress that was established to protect Istanbul from raiding parties coming in off the Black Sea. At the top, you can see the Black Sea in the distance..
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Our last day, we wandered into a very old historic area for lunch. The streets wandered back and forth and even with a map we got lost a couple of times. Finally, we found a great fish restaurant to sit and linger over a late lunch before heading to the airport. We were completely entranced with the street scenes around us.
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