Blogs from Marmara, Turkey, Middle East - page 2

Back in Istanbul but this time on the “newer” side. Istanbul is divided on two continents, Europe and Asia. Where we stayed last time was the Europe side where the original capital of the Roman/Christian, world was seated. Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, was founded by Emperor Justiniani then built up by Emperor Constantine who wanted Constantinople to become the Christian capital of the world. Later, after the Ottoman Seige, it would be seated in Rome. The newer side, where we are staying now was the site off the Genoese (Italian) walled city called Galata. In ancient times, the two sides were connected by a massive iron chain that sat on the bottom of the Bosphorus Strait. When under attack, they would pull the chain from both sides to raise it high enough, but just below ... read more

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey! How I have missed your beautiful sights, sounds, smells and warm culture! For those of you who do not know, Sharon and I had the good fortune to have lived in Turkey when we were growing up. Dad was the Naval Attache to NATO and we lived in Izmir. That is the main reason for this trip. Having lost our Mom two years ago and Dad just this summer, we decided a memorial tour of Turkey was appropriate to honor them in some very special ways. We will visit all of the destinations we enjoyed as a family and more. Our Turkish odyssey began with a quick Turkish breakfast that included two of my favorites, Kalamata olives and ekmek (bread) with honey on the comb. It was delightful! From there we headed to ... read more

It's over. Our flight today is at 8:05pm and our pick up for airport transfer is at 3:30pm so we have time to kill.We both decide to go for a morning walk. I head for the water from to the south of us, somewhere I haven't visited. There are green spaces but oddly they are fenced off, so just for show and not for use. Fishermen try their early morning luck off the walk way. All is good until the rain rolls in, and all I can do is hide under a tree. Now wet, I wait out the showers and head back to the apartment to dry out my clothes. We go down to the bikes and Jeff finishes his pack and we're done by 11:30am, 4 hours to kill. We head off in different ... read more

It was a late night last night due to the river cruise so there was certainly no hurry to get up this morning. We also had very little on the list of things to do, as most of the big ticket items had already been done. We left the apartment about 10am and walked over the hill (again) and down to the Saltanahmet area. Two things on the list here were to finally go to the Ayasofya Mosque which was completed in 537AD. It's interior is showing signs of wear with patches of the ceiling decoration having come away. Its still one of the longest lines to get into, thankfully we beat the peak period and it only took about 20 minutes to get in. After that Jeff and Tom went to the Basilica Cistern which ... read more

Now that the riding is over we can take it easy and rest up, right? Well, that's not how it panned out today. We left the apartment shortly after 8:30am with a list of 6 things to see. 1. The Blue Mosque 2. Topkapi Palace 3. Basilica Cistern 4. Hagia Sofya Mosque 5. Grand Bazaar 6. Galata Tower Although we had metro cards we plotted a course in google maps that took us to each of these points and started walking. We first reached the Sultanahmet Area which provided many sights including a couple of obelisks brought from Egypt. We then stood in the line for the Blue Mosque which moved quite quickly. The Blue Mosque is very impressive, most of the mosques are, but this one especially so, not only because of it's size but ... read more