Istanbul, Turkey (Day 1)

We arrived in Istanbul at 2:00 in the afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day and all the outside decks of the ship were filled with people taking in the amazing skyline of this City. The east bank is lined with mosques that are great architectural sights. To the west, you can see the suspension bridge that connects Europe and Asia together.

Once again, we took a cruise tour to see the sights. This tour is divided over two days, since we are staying overnight in Istanbul. Today, our tour took us to see the Topkapi Palace. This palace is located next to Hagia Sophia…so we got our first, up close look at the outside of this building. The Palace has many rooms that contain jewels from years ago, beautiful buildings within the garden areas, and just an overall grand place.

It was getting late in the evening, so it was not a good time to see the mosques…so they took us to the Grand Bazaar for shopping. The Grand Bazaar is one of the most famous markets in the world. It has about 4,000 shops and goes on and on with shop after shop, mostly jewelry, scarves, dishes, and purses. (I was anticipating this to be a lot like the market in Cairo, but it was totally different. The Bazaar area is covered like a shopping mall and has “store fronts”.) We did purchase a few gifts, but then headed back out to the main street…where we had found a Starbucks!

We enjoyed a latte and chai tea at Starbucks while we waited for the tour group to gather together. It’s crazy that you can be 10,000 miles from home, but still find your favorite drink.