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Published: August 24th 2005
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View of Turkey from our hotel room
We had a lovely sea view from our hotel. Thu 11th - We left Cyprus at 7am and flew to Turkey to stay in Istanbul for a few days. Our trip started a bit rocky when we arrived and needed to buy visas (you do it at the airport before passport control). However the only ATM on that side of the barrier wasn’t working, and we had no Turkish Lira. After being sent to numerous counters we finally met someone who could help. So he took us to the police and explained the situation, then escorted us to the other side, so we kinda entered Turkey once, got our cash, went back through passport control, then entered again, legally this time! By the time that happened though our hotel transfer had left us. Luckily Turkish people are so friendly and helpful. We met a rent-a-car guy in the airport who rang the hotel for us, jabbered away, and after a bit of arranging we were met by another hotel chauffeur 10 minutes later. We went to our hotel which we’d been told was 4* and it lived up to the expectation, it was lovely! After our early start, and unexpected delay at the airport, we took a quick nap, before
The Grand Bazaar
The colours and merchandise were wide and varied. Great fun! hitting the grand bazaar. This place was awesome!! Not just because of all the shopping, but it was just a beautiful market, and the people were so funny. They tried some hilarious lines to get us into their shops to buy things. These were some of the lines they tried which had us in stitches, we literally spent the whole afternoon walking around laughing:
“Would you like to buy your mother-in-law a ring?” Fi: “I don’t have a mother-in-law.” “Would you like one? Here I am”
“Are you angels?”
A young kid trying to convince at an intersection to go to his shop: “That way hell. This way heaven.” Then when we went down hells path, he appeared in one of the shops (quick, sneaky lil bugger) and announced “Now you are in hell”.
A man trying to convince me to look at his carpets, I told him I wasn’t interested in buying and his response was “I only want to show you for the pleasure of your eyes”.
“Are you lost?” our reponse “No.” “Oh, I thought you might have been looking for me” followed by cheeky grin.
We just had such a
Dana in foyer of Intercontinental
This was the hotel where we had dinner on the top floor overlooking Istanbul funny time, the way they delivered these lines was hilarious. And the amount of times we got asked out to dinner or drinks, we could have booked up our whole social calendar. I’m not sure if they actually expect people to say yes, but it was funny.
That night we treated ourselves to an expensive dinner at the top floor restaurant of the Intercontinental hotel. It was lovely, and could have been very romantic with candles and a red rose, there was a great few of the city while the sun set and in the background was someone playing music. The food was yummo, I loved Turkey because every menu had at least a few dishes with eggplant, which I love!
The next day we headed off to the Topkapi palace and the attached haram. We spent quite a few hours here and it was really interesting. Then we walked through the old town and saw the Blue Mosque. After a whole morning of site seeing we thought we'd have a relaxing afternoon at a turkish bath. This was quite an experience, we really didn't know what to expect. We arrived and were shown towards a private changing
Fi at Topkapi Palace
The tile artwork was really amazing, I loved it, not sure how it would look in Charnie though?? room where we put on a towl and locked our things in the room. We were thing ushered into the bathing area. This was a large room full of marble, in the middle was a large marble slab and around the room were marble steps with basins. The marble columns surrounded the room as well. We were told to hang our towels up, sit on the step, splash water on ourselves as needed and wait for them to come back to give us the wash and massage. I stood there in my towel (with nothing else on!) and looked around at the other women in the room and piked out - I couldn't bring myself to sit around in the nuddie, it was all too much for me! Meanwhile I was faced with this dilema on my own, Dana was still in the bathroom. I made a quick decision, rushed back to our room, got our undies and came back much happier. Other women did a variation of things - some were in bikini bottoms, others sat with the towel on, some were in full piece swimmers and the truley brave did as your supposed to and went in the
Dana at Topkapi Palace
We had audio guides going through the palace so we'd know what we were looking at nude. We sat around splashing water on ourselves and enjoying the heat of the (similar to a sauna but not nearly as hot). Then the ladies came in, we moved to the middle slab and were expholiated, soaped and massaged. Afterwards we felt a bit decadent, we basically paid someone to bath us, they even washed our hair and rinsed us off by the basin. But that my friends is what a Turkish bath is all about.
That night we wandered down one of the main shopping/eating promenades and found a cute little cafe for dinner. We had the most amazing nut salad, which we still dream about finding again somewhere. We ordered the meal not having a clue what we'd be getting, the titles were not very descriptive, but were pleasantly surprised, everything was devine!
The next day we headed back to the grand bazaar. We spent most the first day just looking around (and laughing at all the pick up lines), so this day we did the hard bargaining and purchasing. I got some absolutely beautiful ceramic pieces, I wanted everything but limited myself to a plate and lantern, only becuase I wouldn't be able to
Taking a break @ Topkapi Palace
It was a hot day, so any rest in the shade was good! carry it all home on the plane with me. That afternoon we sat in a pub, then headed back to the airport for our return to Cyprus.
Turkey was amazing. We were told to be very cautious of our personal security and to dress conservatively. We were surprised by our Western it was though, girls were wearing things that we though inappropriate for a western country, let alone a muslim country. But we had very few problems our whole trip, just had a great time, I'd definately go back again.
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