Our last night in Dubai on this leg was spent having a lovely dinner at Wafi. The weather is just so pleasant here at the moment – we’re not particularly looking forward to the cold in Turkey!
The flight to Turkey was as uneventful as all of our other flights. They are all completely full – so we hope the airline industry is actually making money. The stories we hear about empty planes are a complete myth…
Gee Istanbul is a busy place. According to various reports we’ve received there are either 10 million, 12 million or 20 million living in Istanbul. Thankfully, our taxi from the airport only took an hour (some other people from our tour party tell a story of a 2.5 hour trip! Blast that!). Our hotel on the first night, the Conrad, is 5 star, so is extremely nice and extremely expensive. After the welcome briefing we headed straight over the road to cheaps-ville to get some decent tucker without paying an arm and a leg. Great local food – just what we were after!
ABM on the Bosphorus
The start of the bus tour was of course an early one – wouldn’t want to mess up the schedule now! We went for a boat ride up the Bosphorus – past several great sites, including palaces, mansions, and some amazing bridges. It was freezing, so you had to stand in just the right place to make the trip bearable – but it was worth it.
Fort on the Bosphorus
Real Estate on the Bosphorus
From the boat, it was back on the bus to transfer across from the Europe side to the Asian side – then on to another ferry to a supermarket place for lunch (this was not our first choice – but the food was cheap and edible). Next stop was Iznik where we saw the ruins of an impressive roman wall, and a church from the 8th century.
The city of Bursa was the next surprise, stopping at the tomb of the sultans (very impressive)
Tomb of Sultan - 1421
and a mosque where the girls donned scarves to comply with local tradition. The silk market beckoned, and Sandra made an investment… Our hotel is very pleasant and overlooks a lovely city, built up against very high mountains. The population is about 1.5million – so it’s a small city by Turkish standards, but very picturesque. Wish we had some more time to just potter around, but we’re on a schedule!!!
Tomorrow we’re heading to Ankara (the capital city of Turkey) where the internet won’t be free like Bursa – so hopefully we’re able to blog tomorrow (the Conrad in Istanbul charged about $26NZD for one hour on the internet – so we passed!!!).
Hey Nikki! A house is a house – but we’ve put in a special picture of the houses along the river just for you! Hope you enjoy!!!
Macca – how are the animals??? [K] Neil says you would enjoy the beer – Efe Pilsner and dark!!!