Advertisement
My last day in Istanbul was spent on firstly on leisurely cruise on the Bosphorous sea. This important water way connects the Marmar Sea and the Black Sea and is open to all ships. Massive palatial homes are built right on the waters edge complete with pools and pavilions and will cost millions of Turkish Lire. People enjoy fishing and some brave souls were swimming, with one area having a beach.
After visting a botanical garden right in the inner city we took a minibus to The Sapphire which is tallest tower in Europe, slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower and some big tower in Frankfurt. Magnificent views of the whole of Itstanbul and the seas.
Istanbul to Turkey is 2 1/2 hours by plane, Lufthansa is a great choice to fly this route and cost me only AUS $400- return.
Within 1/2 hour of landing I had gone through passport control, grabbed my bag which came off the carousel early, straight through the non existent customs area and via a few walkways into the long distance train area of the terminal. Ticket to Halle, sure train leaves in 10 minutes, rail line 7, €65- and 400kms and 4
hours later I arrived in Halle. Very comfortable trains with a licensed buffet car.
Andi and Cassy live in an apartment block on the edge of town, built in the days before the wall fell. So they are clean comfortable and efficient. Not pretty or spacious but good for students and young families. Train station to apartment required a long tram ride and then a bus.
Halle has a major university at various campuses arond the town with some of them right in the centre of the town. Very pretty old buldings with the usual central market place, churches and extremely efficent and plentiful public transport.
Yesterday was another whilwind day. First stop Halloren chocolate factory which is very famous in this area. They specialise in little filled chocolates and have a museum and observatory area to see the production line actually working. Outside the front is a Trabant whcih was a typical East German car made out of cardboard. You had to order one and hope to get it within your life time if you were lucky.
Next stop was the church in the market place where Martin Luther once preached a sermon. We had a
Fort walls
At the narrowest point of the Bosphorous were forts and towers tour and climbed to platforms and walkways on the towers, there were thousands of steps, very steep, hate steps, hate steps, hate steps!!!!!!
After a lunch of sausage in a roll in the market place we had a tour of Handel house which is the actual birthplace of Geroge Frederick Handel. This is a great little musuem with much more than the life and times of this composer but also gives you the history of the evolution of the keyboard as well as the evolution of most musical instruments. A great musuem all signed in German and English.
"Lange nacht" was the next event which is the universities open day. Each faculty prepares displays, experiements, mini lectures and various spots have BBQ food for sale. We visited the English faculty which is right in the centre of town which put on some hilarious short plays, so well done, and watched the russian faculty present Russian folk songs. A bus ride next to the Science faculties area which was once a military school for Russian soldiers. Each department set out displays and the physics area had hands on childrens science games which the kids were loving.
We ended the
evening with a performance of most of Mozart's opera Cosi Fan Tutte. All the students can join a university orchestra and combining with the music students and various soloist they put on a wonderful professional performance.
Home to my new apartment which Andi and Cassy have managed to rent for me. €10 a day for my own room, bed and shower and toilet, a nice luxury to have my own space.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.052s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0275s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb