Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Today was busy... and hot! We had a full day tour of the sights of Istanbul and by the end we were tired and sweaty, but happy we were able to see everything we wanted to.

Our tour started outside the Blue Mosque at the Hippodrome - a circular road once used for chariot races. The mosque is known as the Blue Mosque because of blue tiles surrounding the walls of interior design. The mosque was built between 1609 and 1616 years, during the rule of Ahmed I. We need to take off our shoes to enter and of course I need to cover my head. It is beautiful, but with all the tourist and heat, it really smells of stinky feet.



















The Topkapi Palace is massive! It is approximately 640 acres in size (grounds and buildings). It was the primary residence of the Ottoman sultans for approximately 400 years (1465–1856) of their 624-year reign.

Check out the picture of the fire pit. It was used for heating the rooms in the palace and for charging the hookahs! The Turks have been enjoying their shisha for sometime obviously.



The next highlight was the Hagia (Haya) Sophia. What a stunning place! It is a former Greek Orthodox church, later an imperial mosque, and now a museum. Unfortunately, the base of the church was not constructed properly, so the ground is unstable. It will always need scaffolding to keep it upright, so our guide tells us. She also mentioned that it is as high as a 17 storey apartment building. Crazy!



So, we saw the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and the Hagia Sophia all before lunch. By this point our brains are overloaded with info and we are starving.
We head to the Galata Bridge for lunch. There are restaurants under the bridge which is pretty cool. We order fish which has been cooked in salt. They bring it to out table whole (with all the salt still on), then break of the salt and serve it to us. It is SO good. Not salty at all just moist and very favorful. A little white wine rounded off the meal perfectly.







One thing I forgot to mention, we took the tram to the bridge. Remember in my previous blogs that I said there could be as many as 16 million people in Istanbul? It felt like everyone of them was on that tram. We were pushed into the car like cattle - no personal space here. It is air conditioned but with that number of people there is no cooling down. I could feel the sweat running down my knees to my ankles. Nice huh! It was an experience but when our guide suggested we take it back after lunch, we said we would walk instead.

Our last stop was to a Turkish carpet place, our guide said that she had to have has visit there (part of being a government tour guide???). We didn't buy a Turkish carpet but they are beautiful and we learned a lot about them so it wasn't wasted.

We enjoyed our last dinner in Istanbul. I will miss the Meze plates (cold appetizers of tzatziki, hummus, eggplant, olives, etc.), the kofte (Turkish meatballs) and apple tea. I am sure I can make them at home, but it not be the same.

Location:Istanbul, Turkey

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Today we are leaving for London and will be flying back to Calgary tomorrow. Our flight doesn't leave until 5:30 PM so it gives us a chance to check out the Grand Bazaar this morning. It is the first time it has been open since we got here due to their holidays. We are excited to see it!



It is massive! We have no idea how much we saw or where we even went - it seems endless and honestly, it begins to look the same after a while. We are really glad we went though as we have never seen anything like it. We picked up a couple things - a tray for our Turkish tea set, a couple trinkets and Ron even bought a small hookah (no tobacco, just some flavored herbed and molasses).




After a sweaty walk, more exploring, a leisurely beer and lunch, we head to the airport.




It was been another great vacation with memories we will cherish for years to come. We are now looking forward to getting home seeing our kids - both the furry and non-furry ones.

Location:Istanbul, Turkey

Monday, July 28, 2014

We arrive into Istanbul just before 2 PM. Wow! Is all I can say. We can see the mosques from the water, hear the call to prayer and are just in awe of the shear size of this city. They think about 12 and 13 million people live in Istanbul. They don't know the exact number (could be as high as 16 million) as they haven't done a census in many years. Inconceivable! Oh yeah and the pictures look foggy because the humidity is so high.




Today is the end of Ramadan - the 30 days (every nine months) when muslim's must fast from sunrise to sunset. The end of Ramadan is a feast (holiday) that lasts 3 days. What does mean for us - a lot of people leave Istanbul to go on vacation so the city is quieter, but also means some things (the grand bazaar for example) are closed for these days. Most of the main sites are open though so we will be able to see all those and will try and hit the Grand Bazaar before we leave Istanbul on Thursday.

We have a leisurely morning. It was so nice to sleep in and then hit the gym. Our tour doesn't begin until 2:30. Today we visit the Chora museum (once the Chora church but has been converted and is being restored to show the beautiful mosaics created during 13th century.


Next we head to our first mosque - Rustem Pasa. It is small and not a major attraction but contains some beautiful tile work. Yup, when visiting mosques we must take off our shoes and have our shoulders and knees covered. Women also must cover their heads. Pretty sweet look, huh.




Our last real stop is to see the Underground Cistern. This was built by the Romans in the 16th century as a water reservoir. All the columns in the cistern are "recycled". They are ones they didn't want to use for the buildings that could be viewed (this cistern was filled with water during that time so no one ever saw these), so it is an interesting mix of different styles. Also includes a couple Medusa heads as "fillers" when they needed to add a little more height to the columns.




We have our last dinner on the boat with Chris and Lisa - another fantastic meal! Tomorrow, we disembark and will spend a couple more days in Istanbul before making our way back home.



It has been a great cruise and we are so lucky to have great friends to spend it with. Thanks for putting up with us Chris and Lisa!

Location:Istanbul, Turkey

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Our first day off the cruise and in Istanbul. We head to our hotel - Hotel Nena in the heart of the Sultanahmet area and just 2 blocks away from the Blue Mosque, Haya Sopia and Topkani Palace. In other words, it is a good and convenient location.

After settling into our room, we head to lunch and walk around to explore and get our bearings. We walk around the area of the Grand Bazaar. Even though it is closed for the end of Ramadan holiday, some of the shops nearby are still open. This spice and Turkish delight shop was a real treat... literally.



After sampling their wears and purchasing some dried chilies, curry and apple tea, we continue our walk.




Our tour guides in the previous cities we visited said that Istanbul shouldn't be very busy as most leave the city for the holiday period. That might be the case, but we wonder if tourists are coming into the city. There is a lot of people!

Chris and Lisa are meeting us in the city for dinner so we head to meet them. It is wall to wall people the closer we get to the water and difficult to walk.

The restaurant we choose is new to all of us, but the beer and food is good.







After dinner we partake in a Turkish pastime - smoking a water pipe. No, it doesn't contain any illegal substance, but it is tobacco and ours was apple flavored. It isn't something I would participate in on a regular basis (it is tobacco after all) but it was fun to try it.






The water in the pipe is suppose to clean out the impurities. I am not sure if that is true but it was a lot smoother than smoking a cigar or cigarette and the head rush was very mild and only lasted a few minutes.

Tomorrow we have a full day tour to see some more of the highlights of Istanbul.

Location:Istanbul, Turkey

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Our port is Kusadasi, Turkey. It is very large and looks nice. We weren't able to spend anytime in the port itself as we were on our tour most of the day. I think it is somewhere I would like to come back to and stay longer one day. There seems like there is a lot to see and do.




So, I said that the ruins by Marmaris were cool (and they were), but the ruins at Ephesus are extraordinary. Take a look at these:








This amphitheater can hold 22,000 people and concerts are still being held there today. Crazy!

There is a ton of history at Ephesus and so much more to be excavated. There is a lot of information on Ephesus – just need to Google it as it would be too much go write in here. :-)

From Ephesus our tour takes us to a small village called Sirince. What is interesting about this village? One, it is very pretty and perched within the Turkish mountains; but the really interesting part is that was part of a population exchange between the Greeks and Turks in the early 1900s. Approximately 2 million people were forced to move from their homes in Turkey to go to Greece and vice versa. The homes built in Sirince to house some of these people are still there today and we were lucky enough to have lunch in one of them cooked by an 87 year old woman! It was fantastic!










It is a little hard to tell from the photo, but the chairs were about the size of those for kids and the table the height of an average coffee table. That was all part of the charm. I think both Ron and I agree this was the best tour we had been on. Now there was more to the tour where we had Turkish coffee which was great, but then our guide read our fortunes using the left over grounds from our coffee. That part was a little hokey but up until that part, a great tour.

Tomorrow we sail into Istanbul for our last full day on the cruise.

Location:Ephesus, Turkey

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Today is our one and only tour we have with our friends Chris and Lisa. We didn't plan it that way (we really didn't plan it at all) just worked out that way, but I'm thrilled we can do one with them.

We dock in Marmaris around 8 am and head to the tour buses around 9 am. It is already pretty hot and humid, but don't notice that much as we have an hour long drive to start in our air conditioned bus.

Today we are doing a channel cruise on the Dalyan channel and visiting the ancient ruins of Kaunos. The drive, although long, isn't bad at all. It gives us time to see and hear about all the beautiful landscapes and agriculture of this part of Turkey.




How do I know I am not in Kansas anymore - I use a public washroom (WC). It is clean, which is great but the "toilet" is something I have never seen before. It is like a plastic sink on the floor (and no, I didn't take a picture). Here is the visual - you put your feet on either side and squat. It does flush, so it isn't just an open hole but definitely not something that we would experience in Canada. Now, I could have waited for a toilet with a seat, there were some, but then what would I have to write about????

We load onto these river boats to start our cruise of the channel and reach to the ancient ruins. As we cruise we can see tombs built into the sides of the mountain - remarkable.




We travel onto the ruins - a short boat ride then hop onto a wagon being pulled by a tractor to get up to the actual ruins. At first sight you think those are pretty cool. Then when you hear that they are from 200 BC, you realize it is super cool!







Check out this amphitheater:




Back on the boat we make our way back to our bus stop and lunch. Of course we need a beer after the hot walk around the ruins!




Our boat is leaving the port at 5 PM so it doesn't leave us much time to check out Marmaris but it was enough for the day.

Location:Marmaris, Turkey

Friday, July 25, 2014

Our last and favorite place (that we have visited) in Greece - Santorini. It is very unique and in our opinion... Amazing! We came here on our first trip to Europe with the kids and loved it. Definitely a place we would recommend seeing.



We took the tour to visit the volcanic island, the hot springs and a quick wine tasting at the end. It is hot today but there is a nice breeze so it is completely tolerable.

The volcanic island is just that - an island of volcanic rock that was the site of an active volcano many years ago. There is nothing on it except volcanic rock and of course the volcano is now dormant, but it is interesting to see where the craters existed and you can feel the hot air and see the smoke from some holes.





It was handy to have my own personal geologist with me to provide some further information.

From the island we travel to the hot springs by boat. They are in the bay of the older volcanic island (the one we visited was the "newer" volcanic island). You have to jump off the boat and swim to where the hot springs exist (about 15 to 20 m). I am not feeling into it, but Ron goes and checks it out. It isn't exactly hot, but cool for him to see and do.



Next we head back to the main land for the final piece of our tour - the wine tasting and Santo wines. Santorini isn't really known for their wines but the white and late harvest wasn't bad.

Fira is the main city in Santorini and where we need to go to get back go our boat. We check out a few of the shops and stop for lunch. I am thrilled because Greek iced coffee (Freddito) is on the menu and Ron is definitely good with a bottle of Mythos. Not to mention the view was spectacular (notice our ship in the background). A little Greek salad and some bread and dips rounds off this delightful meal.




Back on the boat we head to the steakhouse for dinner. Thinking I can have steak back in Calgary any old time (and that Ron makes a mean one) I opt for seafood instead. Just a nice light meal of crab legs, or so I thought. Do you know what 2 lbs of Alaskan King Crab legs looks like?!?! Now you do...



It is massive! I am a little embarrassed to say I ate about 3 quarters of it. Did I mention my clothes are getting tighter!?!? It was SO good and the crab legs were so meaty! Well worth the calories I think.

We say good-bye go Greece tonight as we head off in the sunset to Turkey. Tomorrow we will check out Marmaris.

Location:Santorini, Greece