Istanbul

We arrived to Istanbul during the evening from a rather easy flight. The shock of the enormity of Istanbul is instant. 16 million people live in Istanbul (thank you, T) and that does not include the tourist that visit on a daily basis.

The city is exploding at the seams with people. Everywhere you look there is people, more people and more people. It was a shock going from the airport to the hotel. I was no where ready for the walk through “New Town” Istanbul to our hotel. The crowd was shoulder to shoulder. My brain could not handle the amount of stimulus going in: people, lights, sounds, smells and cars. It was literally awesome.

I am not doing it justice with my lack of adjectives, one must go there to experience Istanbul.

Below is a collection of some of the pictures took while visiting. I’ll try my best to recall where we were and what Was happening. Oh yes, our hotel was located several blocks from the protests that were held in Istanbul. If you look closely in some of the pictures you’ll see police officers everywhere, well almost everywhere.

A picture by the Bosporus River.

Many of the local men fish off the a bridge near the Bosporus and also off the pier. Many, Many, Many interesting smells emanated from this place. T’s nose did not agree with this location.

Here we are at a local restaurant, this evening was the first evening where we were not “Sultaned.” Sultaned, became a word we used when we experienced the restaurant tourist pitch, meaning the restaurant host would pick what we were going to eat, at a hefty price, and drink. Us being the nice people we are, just went along with what ever he offered, thus this was the first evening where we headed off the beaten path and went into a more traditional restaurant. No more being Sultaned for us. The food was amazing.

Somehow I managed to only have this picture of food and T took this picture. I really dropped the ball in the food picture department.

A shot of the evening life, away from the crowds. Just beyond the trolley the mass of people was deafening.

The street where our hotel was located. Always quiet early in the morning, come 10am and the noise from the main street could be heard clearly through our windows, in fact the first evening L and I stayed at the hotel, we found it difficult to FALL asleep because of the party atmosphere happening along the main plaza.

Ah yes, the men with big guns. The local police station was located across the street from our hotel.

This is following morning as we head towards Old Town to see the Blue Mosque and other great sites. As you can see from the picture the crowd is slowly building.

THE grand BAZARRE

THE SPICE MARKET

OLD MOSQUE

I’VE BEEN A SULTANED

An old Aqueduct

Back home.

Stay Warm,

M&L

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