Gypsy Feet

Random cool images from Istanbul

Daytime, sunshine (a rare moment on this trip) photo of Blue Mosque from my hotel balcony

The Mexican restaurant where I had dinner!

The Sultan's cemetary

The entrance to the Apricot Hotel - I highly, highly recommend this B&B! Breakfast was great, there are jacuzzi tubs and roman showers, and the owners are the nicest, most helpful people! Book room 2 or 5 for the view of the Blue Mosque.

The street the hotel is on at night.

At the exit to the Handicrafts Cultural Center...the Hagia Sophia, the center and restored Victorian architecture all collide here.

Cats perched in the tree

Want to buy a pretzel?

View out the hotel room window

First impression of Istanbul taken from the train

Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sofia, Basilica Cistern, Blue Mosque and more...

To get away from all the hustle and bustle of Istanbul, I took a ferry to Prince's Islands for lunch. Below are some views from the island and from the ferry. We sailed into the Sea of Marmara and were able to see both the Asian and European sides of Turkey simultaneously.

This sounded really cool, till I couldn't figure out which ferry to take back and with only a few hours to spare before my train left...I got dumped on the Asian side, lost, about an hour long bus ride away from the metro stop that would take me back to Sultanahmet (and the hotel and train station) with only 10YTL (new Turkish Lira) in my pocket. It was my own version of the Amazing Race and it was hilarious!

What a lovely surprise at sunset to stumble upon St. Anthony's of Padua, one of the only Catholic churches in Istanbul as I walked down Iskalal Caddesi - the pedestrain shopping street in Taksim.

The sultan's bed at Topkapi Palace

Junior in the courtyard at Topkapi

The view from Topkapi

As you leave the Hagia Sophia...

This cat (clearly the smartest of the strays that rule Istanbul) found a warm spot from which to pray and people watch...

Mosaics

The Medusa heads at the back of the Basilica Cistern

View of the Blue Mosque from my hotel room balcony

Inside the Blue Mosque

Technicalities of Transportation

My trip began as I realized that THIS was the train I'd be sleeping on...

In my 4x2 room with triple bunk beds...for a 14 hour journey...

The train from Sofia to Istanbul departs at 7:10pm and arrives the next day at 9am. In the midst of such a comfortable journey, you get awakened by police banging on your door at 1am to check your passport as you exit Bulgaria. The process involves bright lights, lots of noise, and about 45 minutes. All of this would be tolerable (as it happened on the way to Belgrade too) and you get to stay in bed...except that about 30 minutes later...it all happens again, only this time you get forced out into the freezing cold of a Turkish train station. First, I had to make my way down to an isolated end of a platform, beyond the duty free shop, to purchase a visa for $20 - paid for with American money only, please. Then I had to retrace my steps to wait in a queue for the passport control guy to stamp my passport. This process took about an hour since the guy was obviously still home sleeping when the call came in that our train had arrived...he didn't arrive for another 3o minutes. All in all, we spent over 2 hours at the Turkish border before we could finally crawl back into our bunks and sleep the remaining 5 hours.

It was all worthwhile though to arrive at Sirkeci station in Istanbul and see this as my intro to the city!