Istanbul

We were woken during the night by a massive thunderstorm with lighting so bright you could see it despite the heavy curtains and closed eyelids, and with a tremendous downpour of rain, and great claps of thunder that seemed to shake the whole city. So no surprise that we got wet in our travels around the city this morning.

We started with a visit to the old city walls, built up from roman times to byzantine and ottoman times, followed by a wonderful church dating to the 13th century and completely covered by magnificent mosaics and frescoes. We've been there a couple of times before but that doesn't matter, it's still breathtaking.

One of the most popular sites in the city is the huge cistern, where roman and byzantine aquaducts bring fresh water into the city and its stored in underground reservoirs. After lunch we spent a couple of hours in the archaeological museum, stopping, now in hot sunshine, to buy a bag of hot roasted chestnuts on our way back to the hotel.Lue lisää