Turkey - Day 3 Tour

So we are up and out and had brekky, went to our favourite coffee place. Heading off on another big walking tour to see mosques, museums, & bazaars with Barbados our guide.

OK so we walked a lot today. We started with cheese lasagne at a cafe, then o to the Spice Bizaar where we sampled so many types of turkish delight which I live but have a new found appreciation for, so many flavours.

We then climbed up to a Cafe out from the moved onto Suleymaniye Mosque and learned a lot about mosques and Muslim faith over the years. It was so peaceful here.

From there we had a lunch special of baked beans, home cooked with chilli spice - yum.

We then walked to the Old Book Bazaar and through the Istanbul University which used to be a palace to the Sultan.

We then went to the Grand Bazaar where I believe you could buy anything 😁 This place has 66 alleys/streets under 40,000sqm cover 2,486 shops and is considered to be the first shopping mall 😁😁😁. The scene from James Bond SkyFall where James is racing a motor bike across roofs was filmed on this roof. It has 800,000 red roof tiles.

We then went to the Cistern Basilica, amazing. This was built by Emperor Theodosius II in 428 - 443 AD, so cool underground, it currently hosts art work on small pedestals in the water. Beautiful.

We then moved onto Hagia Sophia Mosque museum. So humbling. So it was originally built in 400 AD, was burned to the ground, it was rebuilt in 500 AD and again destroyed. It was finally rebuilt in 600 AD and was a Christian church until the Ottoman Empire took over Turkey and turned it into a Mosque.

When Turkey became a Republic after removing the Sultan from power in October 1923, the new president changed this Mosque to Museum. The church mosaics and art work had been preserved by the outer works put up to covert it to a mosque.

These have now been restored and you can see both the Church and Mosque features. This church/mosque has had emperors of the Roman and Ottoman empires crowned here. The massive wooden doors that you walk through are called the emperors gates are rumoured to be the wood from Noah's Ark.

This place has so much history, it was quite humbling to take all this in. We are so young compared to the rest of the world in terms of history.

Home now, twisted the ankle resting it up. Tomorrow we are heading to the beach for some relaxing before we fly out to Cappridocia tomorrow night.

We had the best guide - Barbados- thank you for showing us Istanbul. You could live here 19 years and still not see all thete is to this beautiful historic city.Read more