We determined to spend the entire day at Topkapi palace, a short walk up the hill from our hotel. The last letter in Topkapi, although written in English as a lower case “I” is actually a Turkish letter pronounced “uh,” so the name of the palace should be said as Top kap uh.

We arrived shortly after 9 a.m., hoping to avoid long lines that were ( Read more... )

For our second trip to Turkey, we elected to do 10 days of independent travel. Our original plan was fairly ambitious, involving a night train, a rental car, several World Heritage sites, and 6 different hotels. I ran out of time for planning, so K suggested keeping the 10 days but scaling back some. We wound up with 6 days in Istanbul and 4 in ( Read more... )

We determined to spend the entire day at Topkapi palace, a short walk up the hill from our hotel. The last letter in Topkapi, although written in English as a lower case “I” is actually a Turkish letter pronounced “uh,” so the name of the palace should be said as Top kap uh.

We arrived shortly after 9 a.m., hoping to avoid long lines that were ( Read more... )

Today we were to leave Istanbul and head west and south into Asia Minor.  We still had a few things to do in Istanbul, though.  First we bussed over to Asia and the Turkish First Army Headquarters for a look at Scotari Barracks and Florence Nightingale's old quarters.  Read all about it here.

The article doesn't describe the traffic we had to ( Read more... )

Today I met with the Public Affairs Office to get the scoop on writing an article for the American paper here about the trip to Turkey.  I must have been impressive because they're reserving a space for 600 words plus 2 photos for the next issue!  That means I have to have it to them tomorrow.  Um.

Here's what I learned:  writing 600 words takes ( Read more... )

After lunch we boarded a somewhat rickety boat for a trip along the the Bosphorus Straits and then for a quick visit to Asia.  The straits that connect the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and thence to the Mediterranean some of the most heavily trafficked waters in the world.  We slid past ships and boats of all kinds on our hour long journey.   ( Read more... )

This morning we started at 9 a.m. for Dolmabahce Palace.  Our aim was to be there right when they opened.  As we drove along the water's edge on our way, we passed 2 men pushing carts full of uncovered trays of fish on ice, going I presume to a restaurant from the fishing boats.  They pushed these little wooden carts with big wheels in the right ( Read more... )

After we finished at Topkapi Palace, we bused up to a view point overlooking the city.  Right at sunset.  With a full moon rising.


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We bused over toward Suleyman Mosque, unfortunately closed for renovation.  Still, we had a nice lunch in the cafe across the steet (chosen by our guide but paid for by us), then went into the cemetery garden next to the mosque.

Several of us used the toilet facilities at the mosque. ( Turkish toilets.... )

Today we saw some of biggies in Istanbul:  Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Suleyman Mosque, Archaeological Museum, the Whirling Dervishes.   I'll hit the highlights.


( Read more... )