30 September-1 October Overnight in Istanbul

eylarson

Oct 1

3 min read

Both of us feeling much better.

30 September—Day One in Istanbul. We arrived in the afternoon and met our guide after walking through the most modern cruise terminal we have ever been in. We didn’t book this as a private tour, but it turned out we were the only participants so we could stop whenever we saw anything that interested us. Kemel Aslan majored in Eastern Roman history, lived in China for two years, speaks several languages and really knows his stuff. Our tour included the Blue Mosque as well as the Hagia Sophia, the hippodrome, the cistern as well as lunch.

The Blue Mosque is an active mosque and admission is free. The Hagia Sophia, once a church is still active, but is also sort of a museum. Both are eye watering as any of the great cathedrals we have seen earlier on the trip.

The Hippodrome only has two obelisks and the remains of a bronze serpent to mark what once was a major sports center. One of the obelisks transported from Egypt thousands of years ago, broke. The shipper responsible was put to death.

The cistern was a large underground water storage tank feed by Roman aqueducts. At one time after Rome fell to the Gauls, this was the capital of the remaining Roman empire and required a reliable water source.

1 October—A bus tour with a guide identifying points of interest along the way to the spice market. Some repeats from yesterday. One interesting place was the bio-break at a Shell gas station. Each pump manned by an attendant to assist with your service needs. The included convenience store would feel familiar to anyone from the US.

The spice market was jumping with people, bit tourists and locals. We had an intro with samples of Turkish Delight, pomegranate tea, and a dab of fragrant oils. In fact, as we walked the length of the market we could have filled up on all the samples offered. OK—You could of, all had nuts of one kind or another and I’m not a fan of them. We returned to the ship and tried to have lunch ashore, but the restaurant recommended by our guide from the day before did not open until 3PM. Back to the ship where Dolly had her first hamburger of the trip to date.

Sea Day tomorrow, packing and disembarkation in Athens Saturday. Sunday we embark on the Virgin Voyages leg of this trip.