Another day in Istanbul

Miles: 4.4 Steps: 10482
Flights stairs: 9

We had a pretty low key day today - went looking for the Grand Bazaar to find it was closed. Maybe tomorrow?

Walking around the city is interesting. When near the mosques, there is what we think to be prayer music being broadcasted. Turn the sound up on one of the videos and you’ll hear some of it.

There are stray cats and dogs everywhere. People tend to take special care of them on the street tho. There are bowls of food and water set out on the streets, and even home made houses for them. And I have to say all the strays we’ve come across so far are really friendly and sweet. Tonight we started to walk over to a couple and a police officer asked us not to, as the cats were sleeping and we needed to respect their need for rest. Very cool to see them protected like that.

Nighttime is especially nice here. It cools down quite a bit and they light all the mosques up. Very pretty.

We’re definitely not enjoying the constant harassment by the men trying to sell us things. We experienced the same thing in Mexico, but this is so much more aggressive and intense. They even follow us for a block or more yelling at us trying to get us to buy whatever they are selling. It has definitely made us feel the least “safe” yet, which is too bad because this appears to be a very beautiful country.Read more