Istanbul

Christine:

We made Istanbul a few days ago and have been having a fantastic time here! We drove the car in and were only to happy to relinquish it after 6 days of insane Turkish drivers. The road into Istanbul and in Istanbul was the worst!!!

We're in a great little pensıon (hotel) in Sutanamhet, which is the very old part of Istanbul. Also the most touristy, but we try to avoid that as much as we can. We went to the covered bazaar (market) yesterday, apparently the largest in the world. It was so much fun chatting and haggling with the traders. It quite regulated so they can't get to aggressive! Then we headed to Topkapı Palace, the headquarters of the Ottoman Empire, via the backstreets, which was a fascinating peek into Istanbul culture.

Topkapi was fabulous! Very large and sprawling, it sort of reminded me of Hampton Court Palace in England, only more 'eastern'. I went into the harem (there was an additional charge so Barry didn't come in), which was very cool, and we wandered around for 2 hours. They had a number of Muslim relics there, just like the Catholic churches in Italy, even purportedly John the Baptist's forearm and skull!! It was all very interesting, if not a bit wierd for a non-liturgical Christian like me!!

Altogether, Istanbul is a brilliant city and I would highly recommend it!!

Barry isn't posting on this one - he's finishing the packing as we have to head to the train station shortly. We are using multi-mode transport for the next two days - taxi to the ferry, ferry to the train station, train to Adana (arriving tomorrow morning), coach (bus) to Anatakya, and shared taxi over the border to Aleppo in Syria. It's somewhat epic, but we're together so we'll be fine!