Istanbul & its kind inhabitants

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After a calm Swiss International flight departing from Zurich, we arrived safely in sunny Istanbul. Everywhere, thousands of little flags, advertising each political party of the country. It was about two weeks before the elections. Together with the flags, small cars were being driven all around Istanbul (actually in the whole country as we could notice later on) with music and patriotical songs sometimes.

Quite tired from the flight, we headed to Sultanahmet (actually we were already, but well, it is huge!), passed the Blue Mosque, and try to find the "Rosvet Hotel". It was quite problematic as at the indicated address on booking, there were no hotel signalized in any way. After not even 5 minutes walking up and down the street, a man came to us to ask if we needed help. That very kind owner of the fish restaurant next to our hotel, just called the number I had on the reservation to find out where it was. About 3 minutes later, we were standing in front of the door, where indeed, no hotel's name was to be seen. We understood later, that, as in many places in Turkey, most hotel's owner are managing more than one hotel at the same time! The actual hotels owner was an old man, not speaking a word in any other languages than turkish. However, he was really nice and helpful - or at least willing to be helpful. It was his son, that was actually managing and talking to us, most certainly also handling with things like booking or marketing.

After having left our huge bags at the hotel, we started our visit. Only 2 days and a half were meant to be granted to incredible Istanbul, we had to be quick! We started, as good typical tourists, with the Blue mosque. I have to say I was a little bit disappointed, as it was more a mass tourism experience than an authentic one. There were far too many people in there. One more thing is that, you have to put your shoes off. I have no problem with it. However, muslims use to wash their feet before going into the mosque (or at least, that is what I understood). That is something that tourists don't do... unfortunately. You can imagine what the smell was like. Anyway, the Blue mosque is still worth it and beautiful!

After looking a bit around and admirating the Blue mosque or the Aya Sofia at Sunset (It is really amazing!), we tried a "real" kebab in the "Palatium restaurant & cafe", located in the busiest and most touristical district of Istanbul. We didn't forget the Baklava, because we always eat dessert ;-)

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