Dolmabahçe Palace and jerakeen
I was so exhausted when we got back to the hotel last night that I just couldn't find the energy to post, so here's a quick morning-recap of what happened yesterday.
We once again took the tram to Kabataş (less crowded this time, as it wasn't in the middle of rush-hour), this time to visit Dolmabahçe Palace, the first Western-style palace in Turkey. Maybe it was the familiarity of all it, but Dolmabahçe immediately claimed the throne as my most favourite thing so far, which is pretty funny considering that
jerakeen said it was the most boring palace she could remember.
If they'd allowed visitors to peruse by ourselves, I could've easily spent at least a couple of hours just admiring the furniture, ceilings, chandeliers, paintings, etc. Fortunately the palace grounds were available for free roaming and we spent a good couple of hours soaking up the sun that made its first proper appearance yesterday. Since both our cameras were dead, we made do with our iPhones. Obviously the pictures don't really match up against what we could've had but now at least there are some.
We were supposed to take a bus from Kabataş to Ortaköy to see
jerakeen but it was such a lovely that we decided we could easily walk the few kilometres. This turned out not the be the brightest idea because what we'd imagined to be a leisurely stroll along the Bosporus turned out to be a narrow sidewalk on the side of a busy road. We also managed to walk straight into a (student?) demonstration next to a university with police crawling all over the place and were just waiting for them to close off the entire road.
Well, that didn't happen and we eventually arrived in this lovely seaside park where the restaurant we were meeting was located. The restaurant itself was amazing, with shiny white tablecloths, three different waiters attending to us and freaking cleaning off the bread crumbs in between courses. I remain utterly taken in by that last bit. It is now the new standard everything will be held against.
I'd never really eaten proper meze before, that was interesting, and the main course of seabass and plaice was to die for. For dessert
jerakeen ordered us an assortment of different sweets (fig, pumpkin, baklava and.. something else she didn't know the name of). By the time we were finished, I was ready to be rolled home.
But the best part of the evening was definitely meeting
jerakeen in person for the first time and finally putting a face to the presence I've known for over a year now. I guess it's the new socializing era, where you can have friends all over the world, but for me nothing still beats meeting them in person.
jerakeen was so lovely and treated us to this amazing dinner and even loaned us her camera for the rest of our visit. I am so, so glad we got to do this.
To top off the evening, she'd even arranged us a lift back to our hotel. That turned out to be a pretty interesting experience, by the way, because the driver wasn't apparently very familiar with Sultanahmet, so we sped around and around, up and down the narrow streets and winding alleys, but he did get us where were going.
A night to remember for a very long time :)
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can also comment there using OpenID.
We once again took the tram to Kabataş (less crowded this time, as it wasn't in the middle of rush-hour), this time to visit Dolmabahçe Palace, the first Western-style palace in Turkey. Maybe it was the familiarity of all it, but Dolmabahçe immediately claimed the throne as my most favourite thing so far, which is pretty funny considering that
jerakeen said it was the most boring palace she could remember.
If they'd allowed visitors to peruse by ourselves, I could've easily spent at least a couple of hours just admiring the furniture, ceilings, chandeliers, paintings, etc. Fortunately the palace grounds were available for free roaming and we spent a good couple of hours soaking up the sun that made its first proper appearance yesterday. Since both our cameras were dead, we made do with our iPhones. Obviously the pictures don't really match up against what we could've had but now at least there are some.
We were supposed to take a bus from Kabataş to Ortaköy to see
jerakeen but it was such a lovely that we decided we could easily walk the few kilometres. This turned out not the be the brightest idea because what we'd imagined to be a leisurely stroll along the Bosporus turned out to be a narrow sidewalk on the side of a busy road. We also managed to walk straight into a (student?) demonstration next to a university with police crawling all over the place and were just waiting for them to close off the entire road.
Well, that didn't happen and we eventually arrived in this lovely seaside park where the restaurant we were meeting was located. The restaurant itself was amazing, with shiny white tablecloths, three different waiters attending to us and freaking cleaning off the bread crumbs in between courses. I remain utterly taken in by that last bit. It is now the new standard everything will be held against.
I'd never really eaten proper meze before, that was interesting, and the main course of seabass and plaice was to die for. For dessert
jerakeen ordered us an assortment of different sweets (fig, pumpkin, baklava and.. something else she didn't know the name of). By the time we were finished, I was ready to be rolled home.
But the best part of the evening was definitely meeting
jerakeen in person for the first time and finally putting a face to the presence I've known for over a year now. I guess it's the new socializing era, where you can have friends all over the world, but for me nothing still beats meeting them in person.
jerakeen was so lovely and treated us to this amazing dinner and even loaned us her camera for the rest of our visit. I am so, so glad we got to do this.
To top off the evening, she'd even arranged us a lift back to our hotel. That turned out to be a pretty interesting experience, by the way, because the driver wasn't apparently very familiar with Sultanahmet, so we sped around and around, up and down the narrow streets and winding alleys, but he did get us where were going.
A night to remember for a very long time :)
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can also comment there using OpenID.