Istanbul!!

Hey all! So my blog is not letting me upload the photos from my Istanbul trip which stinks. I'll see if I can fix it but I guess for now I can give you a brief overview of what we did.

The weekend of December 15^th and 16^th, Rotary took us to the city of Istanbul. I have to say it’s the best place I’ve been to so far. I LOVED the city. I was excited to go because Istanbul is so full of history and its history stretches back for centuries. We started our trip by visiting the Blue Mosque.  It was much bigger than I had expected. It was beautiful, but because it is still in use, we didn’t get to see as much as we could have.

The next place we went to was Topkapi Palace.  The palace grounds were huge! I tried to imagine myself living there but I couldn’t. In the palace we got to see a room with the different types of weapons used by the Ottomans from the 14^th century to the 20^th century. I found it really interesting because all these weapons had been used and they were so different from the weapons you’d see the French or English use at that time. We also went through a room with the precious jewels, headdresses, flasks and thrones used by the many Sultans. This was my favorite place because everything was really beautiful and the gold and jewels were crafted so well. We also got to go through a part of the Harem at the palace. We saw only 10% of it and I hadn’t expected it to be so big. We probably spent 30 minutes in the 10% we saw.

The next place we saw was the Hagia Sophia. Of all the sights we saw on this trip, the Hagia Sophia was the place I loved the most and could have spent hours in. We didn’t have much time there because it was getting dark so that kind of stunk. It is big and beautiful and what I liked the most were the mosaics that have been preserved for ages. You could also see the 6 important symbols of Islam from when the building was a mosque.

The next stop was the underground cisterns. This is where the city drinking water used to be kept. They don’t use it now but they still have water there and fish for the tourists. I didn’t personally like it because there wasn’t much to see and it was dark.

Our last stop the first day was the Grand Bazaar. Unfortunately, we had very little time to spend in the bazaar, so we didn’t get to really look around. I was able to buy a pair of good boots there though. We then spent the night in a hotel that was really close to all the places we went to.

The next morning, we started by going to the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. I never imagined that there were so many spices in the world. We saw not only spices, but also saw and got to try Turkish Delight...no it is not a myth, it exists. I loved it a lot and bought some to give to my family.

The next thing we got to do was go on the tour of the Bosphorus. Sadly the day was rainy and foggy, so we couldn’t see things as well; but the tour was still nice. It was really exciting to sail between Asia and Europe. We sailed under both Euro-Asia suspension bridges and also the bridge connecting old and new Europe. We were able to see many of the historical sites from the boat as well as the newer business centers.

I could go on and on about it but I think this gives you and idea of our trip. I hope I can load photos soon becuase the places were absolutly breathtaking. I'm so happy I came to Turkey!!

Monica