Moving on over to Istanbul

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Day 7

Tonight we leave for Istanbul. We will be sad to leave this beautiful island. Most of the day we hangout having lunch, drinking iced coffee's, and lounging at the beach. We found a shop selling the notorious 2 litre glass boot and have to purchase one. I do not think we will be drinking beer from it again but who knows!

In the evening we return to Le Gourmet for our final dinner on Rhodos. The hostess/owner Maria is sad to see us depart the island and so are we. We have an assortment of appetizers, giant prawns, and lamb, a fitting farewell dinner. A taxi takes us to the airport and we ready the airplane for the other passengers. The flight to Istanbul takes 58 mins. By the time we arrive we are tired and ready to go to the hotel.

We make our way through passport control and into an awaiting taxi van. The taxi takes us 30 mins into the city to the Istanbul Hilton. Already the city does not look like what we expected. It is big but relatively clean, modern, and the streets are well maintained, it is almost like we are in eastern Europe, oh wait, we are, as far east in Europe as one can get. Our room has a beautiful view of the Bosphorus, the waterway separating the European continent from the Asian continent and the two halves of Istanbul. Awaiting us in our room is a plate of Turkish baklava, Turkish delight, and a liqueur that tastes like raspberry cough syrup. We soak in the view with a cocktail and hit the hay.

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Photos

Istanbul Hilton
The night view from our hotel