Salda Hotel Istanbul

After our jobs were cut in half, we had a lot more free time on our hands to get out and familiarize ourselves with the city. However, winter was on its way, so the days were getting shorter, the temperature was dropping, and the skies were clouding over -- all of which made sightseeing less appealing.

That said, we were able to at leas...

After havıng a wonderful conference, gettıng to know many new frıends, I left for aırport wıth the Amerıcan offıcer. He gave me some advıces as of where to vısıt ın Istanbul. He recommended prınces Island. Well, ıt turned out to be a good advıce, and all the Western backpacker...

Day 2 and maybe 3



Oy. Well, as I've probably made clear, internet access has been inconsistent and up to this point, I've been either too tired or too busy to write. So today is technically, Day 4.



On actual Day 2, the first thing we did was go to the Underground Cistern. This is like a large underground cav...

May 30th - Istanbul

We got off the night train feeling much better than when we arrived into Serbia the other day, the sleeper cabin was definately a good investment. This was despite the best efforts of the ladies in the cabins next to us who played Turkish music loudly most of the night and continually kept interchanging cabins with e...

May 11th 27th installment We wake up at 5 AM to the morning call to prayer. It is quite eerie this announcement--you can hear the closest minaret as though it was in the room with you. The voice is a sing-song announcement, in Arabic for the faithful followers of Mohamed to start their morning prayers. From our room you can hear calls from 4 or ...

Istanbul We are doing the EZ tour of Istanbul, Bus into the City from Asia (because the Bosphorus Straits connect the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmora and it also separates Europe from Asia and divides the city of Istanbul into two sections). There is now a bridge that does this but previously there were only ferry boats. Istanbul is also the p...

The classy dinner night at Galata Tower included the following: 20.00 - 21.00 : Dinner Service 21.00 - 21.30 : Band begins to play 21.30 - 21.45 : Folk Dances 21.50 - 22.20 : Harem Show 22.20 - 22.35 : Caucasus Folk Dances 22.35 - 22.50 : 2. Belly dancer 22.50 - 23.50 : Showmen Chanteure 23.50 : Dance Music The 6 of us dressed up in black and wh...

Istanbul is absolutely amazing. I decided to stay longer here than originally expected because I love it so much! I made a friend on the train from Thelassaniki (sp?) to here named Rachel, from Rhode Island. We pretty much made fast friends and decided to hang out every evening in Istanbul for dinner, or simply for walking around. I got here las...

Hey Guys, Well its time for the latest installment of my adventures from abroad this time from Istanbul in Turkey. I warn you now that this is going to be a long one so for those with limited time if you switch off now I won't blame you. Sonia, Donna and I set off early morning on Tuesday with good old Easy Jet. I swear our flight was 95 percent...

We met our tour guide at 9am. Erol with Sea Song Tours is an older gentleman and at first I was worried that he wouldn't cover as much as I wanted. As I would soon discover, that would not be a problem. First stop was the Hippodrome, or what is left of it. It was a very large stadium for chariot races. All that is left are three monuments or col...