Istanbul, Walking the Streets

Saturday March 19

Spent this morning reorganizing my backpack and packing it up again. Then I went for a walk around town just wandering the streets and checking things out. I went up a little windy street near the Topkapi and it led me to the back of the Ayasofya Mosque. There was part of the old wall from when Istanbul was a walled city. I also found three building at are all octagonal in shape and are the masoleums of the last few sultans. Each was very beautifully decorated with tiles and domed ceilings. In each were the sarcophagi of a whole family, the sultan, his wives, and his children. In one there were 42! All are above ground and covered with a coloured shroud. After that I went and had another rice pudding and orange and pomegranite drink.

Back to the hotel to settle up my bill and to order a airport pickup for six am. Then I did some computer stuff.

Later I went out again and wandered around through the spice market and the Grand Bazaar. I walked for three hours just exploring the markets, watching people, getting lost and buying a few things. Had another yummy kebab for dinner and then back for the evening.

Tomorrow morning I leave Istanbul. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay here. I enjoyed the company of my friends from the tour for the first half of the week and also enjoyed being by myself for the last half. It was good to relax, stay put and recharge my batteries after all the tours and moving about I've done for the last couple of months. I think this would be a great city to spend time in with a special person. There are lots of romantic type places to eat or hang out.

Istanbul is a beautiful, vibrant city with a rich and ancient history and lots of historical sites to visit. It has a very rich culture, based around customs, food, religion, and music. The people are very friendly, the city is quite clean, there is little sign of poverty or homelessness, the mosques are amazing, the call to prayer is loud and often conflicts with other mosques, the food is delicious, the traffic is busy, the people seem to love to be out and about. It really is one of the best cities I've ever visited.

However, I'm glad I was here now and not in the summer. I think this place is a huge tourist magnet for people from all around the world. You can tell by the amount of hotels, restaurants, tourist shops, and tour operators. I'll be it gets jam packed and the lines for admission are long and all the prices go way up. Off season can be a good thing!

Now I'm going back to Africa to do what I wanted to do earlier.