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Published: June 25th 2014
24/06/14
Istanbul: Overnight we will be steaming in a North Easterly course making our way towards the Strait of Dardanelles. Around midnight with the Captain and duty officers on the bridge, we made our way through the Dardanelles Strait. The Dardanelles is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart, the Bosphorus. The strait is 61 Km’s long but only 1.2 to 6 Km’s wide, averaging 55 metres deep, with a maximum depth of 103 metres. In the early morning we entered in the Sea of Marmara and continued our voyage on an easterly course towards Istanbul. Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, constituting the country’s economic, cultural, and historical heart. With a population of 18 million the city forms one of the largest urban agglomerations in Europe. Istanbul’s vast area of 5343 square Km’s is coterminous with Istanbul province, of which the city is the administrative capital. Today we ventured on a tour of the best that Istanbul had to offer. After a scenic drive past a 400 year old mosque which is referred to as
Harem
One of the view of the Sultan's harem apparently he had over 1200 concubinesthe new mosque we arrived at the Blue Mosque, which consists of a multitude of domes and graceful minarets which envelope the exterior, and over 20,000 blue iznik tiles line the interior. Next stop was Topkapi palace museum, which was the former palace of the Ottoman Sultans. This museum displayed an extraordinary collection of art, and jewels, including the famed Topkapi diamond of 86 carats. The harem of the palace revealed a look into how the sultans once lived. After a traditional Turkish lunch, we visited the Grand Bazaar with over 40,000 shops, and Hagia Sophia, one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture, rich with mosaics and marble pillars and coverings. A thoroughly exhausting day.
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