Family - Istanbul, day 4

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  Istanbul, Turkey
Sunday, March 16, 2008

Today was just fantastic. Patty has already shared her thoughts, and I can only concur - a great day. After yet another great breakfast, we set across Bezayit square (really across the road from the hotel, but only just discovered), and onto the Sulemanya mosque complex. This was incredibly impressive, not the less because it has the tomb of Suleyman the Great, and the evil courtesan, Roxalena. Amazingly, we bumped into the only American we have met so far on the trip, a Delta booking agent from Cincinnati. What were the chances of that happening?
After that, a walk down to the dock at Eminunu next to the GAlata bridge, and a 20 minute ferry ride to Kadikoi, a part of Istanbul on the Asian side. Nice trip, with tea for Patty and I on the top deck. The area we landed at was a modernized fishing village, now more commercialized, and very crowded with Sunday strollers. We found a great place for lunch in a restaurant right on the water, after which we ferried back to Eminunu

Asher, the clean!!!

. From there, a quick tram up to the Sultanahmet area,  and down into the Bassilica Cistern. This was built by Justinian in the 5th or 6th century, and aimed to store water for the city (see more about this on Asher's page). Really quite amazing, but the sight of the water, and the dripping noise had a profound impact on many people's bladders.........
We then discovered a highlight: On the corner of Sutanahmet square is a building with a terrace restaurant (I think the Sutan Bar and Grill), with exquisite views of the Aya Sophia, Blue Mosque and the mouth of the bosphorus, Sea of Marmaris, etc. Needless to say, it was very expensive, but we got away with a coffee and a beer - we could not bring ourselves to spend $12 per ice cream for each of the kids, but they were well served after we left. The place was quite spectacular, and was a wondrful unwind for Patty and me - you really felt as if you were above the "fray".

We had a quick dinner, and then onto another highlight of any of our trips ever - a visit to the Cemberlitas Turkish Bath. I will describe this in a seperate blog, but all I can say is this: SPECTACULAR!!

Lastly, we have been having problems with our laptop, so I don't know how many more photographs we will be able to load.

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Russel the Sultan

The very clean Hirsch family

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