Welp, let me say there is nothing like having no internet, no smartphone and no TV to make you feel soooo disconnected from the world. As I finally settled into my flat in London this week, I have yet to set-up anything, although my closet is full already. So, I sincerely apologise for my lack of blogging.

A few weeks ago was Paul and I's third anniversary - time flies! We had  passed the Maiden's Tower a few times from our Bosphorus cruises, and I thought it was cute and picturesque The guide books never said much and I thought it was just a little place on the water that was pretty to look at from shore. However, I recently found out they had a restaurant there and decided I wanted to visit it.

I said something to  Paul in passing at some point and he took it upon himself to surprise me and made special plans for us to celebrate at the tower on my last weekend in Istanbul.

To get to the Tower, you have to take a boat. We left from Kabatas and while the ride was a bit choppy on the smaller boat, it was scenic as always.

Arrival at the tower

The restaraunt is a bit fancy - they call it "white glove service." It's a 4 course meal and you have two different menus to select from. I got the one without seafood and Paul got the seafood one, but I did have to steal his desert!

Other than the dinner, you can walk up to the top of the tower for a bit of history and a view.

Walk past the murals with stories of the fabled princesses 'emprisoned' here; read the stories of the tower's many uses of history including residence, hospital and lighthouse.

She was locked in the tower and a passing sailor fell in love with her. When he came to rescue her, his ship was attacked and he drowned trying to reach the island. Or something like that

Self portrait for our anniversary - we gave in and paid the photographer for a 'professional picture

And finally, you get to the best part - the fantastic views.

Beautiful Bosphorus Brdige

Would I recommend it? That depends. The food is pretty good, but in no way Turkish and definitely overpriced. But, you are definitely paying for the experience. We sat there for over three hours enjoying course, after course, after course of food. Pay extra, and you even get a window seat! 

I will repeat this again - Paul and I don't do museums. We have tried and tried, but we always seem to find ourselves more bored than we thought we would be and rushing through to see the major sites and get out. I don't know if its overwhelming or just that we have a short attention span, but we usually avoid real, true museums on our travels.

Recently, we made our FIRST visit to an Istanbul Museum - the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. I wasn't expecting much. Not just that I don't enjoy museums, but it's Turkey. I expected it to be disorganised and all over the place (a bit similar to our experiences at the National Museum in Cairo). And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

In no way am I a museum convert. I still found myself at the end running through the Troy exhibit just to say I saw it and get out of that museum. Truth be told, we tired out before visiting the third part of the Museum complex, the Museum of the Ancient Orient. However, they had quite a few nice collections and lots of good signage IN ENGLISH that helped contribute to our enjoyment of the Museum.

The highlights if you want to do the "quick" tour like us?

1. Tiled Kiosk - in addition to the beatiful tiled exterior, the inside of the kiosk includes pottery and tiles from many different parts of Turkey's history. Some of the oldest sections come from the Selcuks reign during the 13th century.

The Arabic over the door explains the building was built by Sultan Mehmet the conqueror in 1472

2. The Sarcophagi - there are two sarcophagi here who are the best known of the bunch, but honestly, all the tombs are in pretty great condition. The exhibit for these consists of several rooms, including one for the most famous others for certain periods and one that is to given an idea of what the palace around one of the tombs was like.

Alexander sarcophagus - they originally thought it belonged to Alexander the great due to the scenes of Alexander battling and hunting on the sides, it was actually the final resting place of King Abdalonymos of Sidon

Sarcophagus of the Mourning Women - this is the sarcophagus of King Straton of Sidon. The women depicted on this are the women of his harem.

3. Dead People - yes, it might sounds morbid, but they had more intact skeletons here than I had ever seen in a museum. I counted 3 during my quick skim of the museum, but this was the best one on display.



4. Istanbul History - I may have forgotten to take a picture, but this exhibit is fun for visitors to Istanbul. It has history and artifacts of many of the major sites, including Aya Sofia, Chora Church and the Galata Tower.

During our visit, the Greek and Roman statue section was closed for renovations, and I have a feeling there may be some gems there too, you'll have to check it out for yourselves!

The museum is located near Topkapi Palace - exit the tram at the Gulhame stop, walk up past the gardens and around the corner to the Archaeological Museum. Like many of the other tourist stops in Sultanahmet the museum is closed on Mondays.

Over the last couple weeks, I have gotten the chance to knock a few more things off my Istanbul bucket list, including trying a hamam.

Another bucket list item to check off was Rumeli Hisari - we have seen in it from the water on Bosphorus cruises. And we've seen the signs pointing into the direction of the fortress, but never wandered there.

This weekend, we decided to hit two birds with one stone - check out Rumeli AND visit Kale Cafe, which both local friends and Anthony Bourdain recommended.

Rumeli Hisari was a fortress built by the Sultan Mehmed II when the Ottomans were trying to take Constantinople. It is right across from another Ottoman fortress built the century before, strategically located on the narrowest point of the Bosphorus .For being a fortress on the water, it was built pretty speedily - in 4 months time. It must have worked because the next year, the Ottomans took Constantinople.


Today, there isn't much to see in the fortress itself. You can walk along the walls for great views of the Bosphorus, see the ampitheatre with the one minaret that remains of the mosque. That's about it. In itself, it may not be worth a trip to this part of town for people further away.


But for us, it was close by and the breakfast at Kale Cafe made it worth the trip.  Traditional Turkish breakfast usually consists of tomatoes, cucumbers, tulum/feta cheese, olives and bread. And I love this breakfast. Add to it more types of cheese - including fried cheese & cheese soaked in honey - traditional Turkish eggs (menemen), chai and delicious puffy bread and it gets even better. The idea is easy - you order breakfast and anything else you want on the side (hence the menemen). They come round every 10 minutes or so offering fresh chai and you can sit back, relax and enjoy the views of the Bosphorus bridge and waters.

Everyone seems to know about the Turkish baths. And when people come, they all say, oh, let's try a Turkish bath!

About 20 km southeast of Istanbul are a series of 9 islands called Princes Islands. Or at least that's what they are called in English, in Turkish they are more commonly referred to as Adalar (the islands). I still don't quite get the disparity between works in Turkish and English (e.g. Boğaz in Turkish, Bosphorous in English). If they are proper nouns, shouldn't they be the same?

I digress.

These islands got their name as they were originally used as a place for ex-princes and monarchs - doesn't seem like too terrible of an exile to me. Later in the 19th century, they became popular as summer resorts for the wealthy. Even today, they are most popular in the summer. The popular goes from 15,000 to 100,000 in the summer as people flock from Istanbul to escape the heat, crowds, and cars. That's right, the islands have no cars, with the exceptions of emergency and city vehicles (like the always important waste trucks). Such a nice respite from the incessant honking in Istanbul.

The islands have been on my bucket list for a while, but we hadn't yet made it there. The most difficult part was that I wanted to bring Belle with us. Getting around with a dog can be troublesome in Istanbul, so perhaps I was just avoiding what I thought would be an annoying and irksome process of getting her to Princes Islands for the day.

Luckily, we got some good advice and a car lent to us from a friend. We drove to Bostanci to take the direct ferry to Büyükada, the largest of the 9 islands. Other than finding the ferry port and finding parking, it was easy, breezy with the dog. She was showing off her tricks to all the Turks and making friends. Not to mention, she LOVED the boat ride. So many fish to see in the water, birds to see in the sky and things to smell in the air! 40 minutes of pure bliss for Belle and we arrived at Büyükada.

Beautiful ferry building at Bostanci

Belle looking pretty at Princes' Islands

Waterfront restaurants from the ferry docks

Despite this being one of my bucket list items, I really hadn't planned in advance. I had heard there was a monastery on the island and that was about it. So, we spent the entire day moseying a bit.

We had lunch and worried about the impending storm blowing through. Luckily, it hit Istanbul but avoided the islands. Good luck? Absolutely.

Stormy Istanbul. Despite sports shutter speed and a couple hundred photos, I couldn't quite capture the lightening

Next we decided to try a feyton. These are the horse drawn carriages that are one of the main transports other than bikes on the island. Even Belle got to ride around. This is a great way to see the city in an hour, there aren't really major sites, but you can see some of the views and enjoy/envy the new summer homes.

Old streets lined with little shops and dondurma (Turkish ice cream restaraunts)

Our feyton carriage

Someone else's feyton carriage

While there are plenty of new summer homes in the city, it is also filled with these old, somewhat sad buildings.

View from the top of the island overlooking the other islands

After the feyton is where my lack of planning came into play. We had just missed one ferry and the next ferry wasn't for 3 hours. What were we to do? Well, after a nice stroll along the waterfront, we decided to hang out in typical Turkish fashion. We joined the locals bathing on the rocks, although Belle was the only swimmer; we enjoyed some dondurma and lokma (not to be confused with lokum/turkish delight). Once our bellies were once again full, we smoked some nargile, also on my bucket list, and taught ourselves how to play backgammon (Tawula in Turkish).

Istanbul views from the Büyükada shoreline

Everyone hanging out on the shoreline - swimming, sunbathing, eating, or my favorite pastime - people watching

Dondurma and lokma - lokma was a little sweet for my taste

Apple nargile AKA hookah

Getting there:
Check the ferry times here (fast ferry) or here (conventional ferry). You can catch the ferry from Kabataş on the European side or Bostanci on Asia side.

What to See:
- St. George Monastery - not much remains, but if you don't mind making the trekk up there, you might as well check it out
- Panoramic views - head up to the top of the island to get great views of the other islands, or check out the shoreline by the docks for great cityscapes of Istanbul
- Relaxation at work! Do as the locals do and just sit back and enjoy the quiet and sun.

I have always said that Chora Church is one of the most under visited tourist sites in Istanbul. When I asked a native Istanbullu (or is it Istanbullian? Istanbulite?) what I must see in Istanbul and she responded Kariye Museum, I knew I had to be right.

Chora Church is one of my absolute favorite spots to visit, but because its a bit off the beaten path of Sultanahmet, people don't venture out that far.

So what is it that makes Chora Church so special? People flock to Aya Sofia and love the tiled mosaics there but don't even realize that Chora Church is full of similar mosaics that are much better preserved. Because Chora Church's mosaics weren't worked on until the 1950's, they are in great condition compared to Aya Sofia, as if the plaster preserved them in time. Of course they aren't perfect, the building was built in the 11th century and the mosaics added in the 14th century.

Even if you aren't a bible buff (which I make no claims to be - all explanations are thanks to my wonderful and worn Rick Steve's book left by my friend), you can still enjoy the church. Don't forget to take your sunglasses off your head as you will spend most of the time staring up at the ceilings. When you come out at the end with your neck a bit sore, you can use that as your excuse to visit a hamam for a nice massage.

The Resurrection - here Jesus descends into hell and is saving Adam and Eve from their coffins.

 

Journey of the Magi and presentation of the gifts to Herord

View of the exterior Narthex - in the front right hand corner you can see the miracle of Jesus turning water to wine

In the top is the temptation of Christ (devil represented by the dark angel)

The nativity scene

The Massacre of the innocents is illustrated - when Herod ordered the murder of male children to find baby Jesus

Biblical Genealogy of Christ - here Christ is surrounded by figures from the old testament like Adam and Noah

So if it's so hard to get to, how do you get there?

1. Take a taxi - as always, be careful in Sultanahmet to make sure you don't get a gypsy cab. It should have a meter which starts off at 2.70 TL.
2. Take the tram - from Sultanahmet, take the tram to Topaki stop (not to be confused with the stop where Topkapi palace is located. This stop is further down). Here transfer to the rail and ride to Edirnekapi stop. Once you get off, turn to face the city walls and walk towards them across the traffic. Take a left past the bus stop on Viz Sokak and then right on Kariye Camii Sokak.
3. Take the bus - from Taksim, take the #87 bus to the Edirnekapi stop. Here, facing the city wall, the church is in your right. Follow the same instructions as above.

Unless you are like me and a little prone to getting lost, it really isn't too hard to find. While you're in the area, wander the city walls for great views of the city too.

The first time I went to Ortaköy was before we even moved to Istanbul. I tagged along with Paul on a 48 hour visit in order to confirm that I could indeed live in Turkey. While we were here, we got in a Bosphorus boat cruise and made a pit stop in Ortaköy. We were greeted by the hustle and bustle of Istanbul on tiny streets packed with restaurants, jewellers/artists selling their goods and people taking it all in.




Since then I have been hooked and it is a favorite place to take visitors when they come into town. On the weekends, they have some great street vendors selling art, jewelry, books and more, in addition to the usual stores there.

Ortaköy also is a great place to have a meal and enjoy  the views. Whether you sit down at Mado or the House Cafe, or grab a kumpir to go and sit by the water, you won't be disappointed by the atmosphere. There's even a guy selling mussels if you want something "fresh" and slimy (I may be biased as a non-seafood eater, but there's something fishy about this).




But, like I said, the best part of it is the view. Right up on the Bosphorus and right under the Bosphorus bridge, you get a fantastic view of the ships, water, bridge, birds and everything else that makes the Bosphorus so unique.

Istiklal Caddesi (translated to Independence Street) is arguably one of the busiest streets in Istanbul, and with good reason. Day or night, Wednesday, or Saturday it is always full of life and people.

You can find anything here: shopping, street entertainment and lots of lots of food. Most of my favorite, albeit not-too-Turkish, foods can be found here like waffles, kumpirs and wet burgers.

With family in town this week, a visit to Istiklal was in order. So what are our favorite things to do while there with our visiting tourists?

1. Check out historic sites on the way:
There are tons of older buildings here and things tucked away just off the main street. I love this facade in front of St Anthony's Catholic Church, which is also worth checking out. It is the largest Roman Catholic Church in Istanbul.



2. Stroll down the Balık Pazarı
Besides the fishermen on Galatasaray bridge, this is a great place to fish shop. Here there are all kinds of fish, big ones, small ones, spotted ones, and whatever else the fare is! Even if you don't eat fish (like me) it's fun to "window shop".


3. Find a little bar and have a glass of rakı
Rakı is a popular drink in Turkey and you will see lots of people indulging in it with their dinner. A bit like Greek ouzo, it is a clear drink that clouds up once you mix it with water. And you will definitely mix it with lots of water.


4.Sample the fares from the street vendors
Here you can find mostly simits (the bagel like bread) and kestanes (roasted chestnuts), but also roasted corn. There are lots of vendors to choose from, so take your pick!