Istanbul in the Spring – Part 2 – 2024

We were in Istanbul for six days and packed a lot in, too much to write about in a post or two so I am going to concentrate on photos so you can see what the city looked like and what we did. It was a great experience. Above photo I took in the Cisterns which was built in the 4th century to supply water to Constantinople (now known as Istanbul) It’s amazing to think it’s survived all these years and we were able to tour the underground cisterns. Interesting fact – part of the James Bond movie, From Russia with Love was filmed in the Cisterns.

  • It was cool down here and quite beautiful
  • A spooky shadow made from the statues

Some other things we saw were the Galata Tower, a couple of markets, a boat ride on the Bosphorous river, some mosques, Hagia Sophia, and lots of street walking. We saw a lot of cats on our street walks and a lot of other somewhat unusual things, it was an interesting place. We went to the Orient Express office but you had to have a ticket for the train to eat/drink at the cafe but at least we were there. At the Galata Tower, everyone was taking a photo of themselves with this particular cake in front of the Tower. The cake is Instagram famous and is called the San Sebastien cheesecake. I did not have any of the cake, it looked too gooey to me so Clint ate it and then took a photo of me (sans cake) in front of the Tower.

We also met up with friends for dinner (photo below). We had met Halim and Chris when we went to South East Asia with them earlier this same year. Halim is from Istanbul but they live in England. They were there on holidays and as we kept in touch with them, we were able to get together and had a fantastic dinner and a great time exchanging news. Halim did all the ordering as he could speak the language which was impressive indeed.

  • Orient Express
  • Cafe at the Orient Express
  • Me at the Bazaar
  • Soap at the market and yes I brought some home
  • Market
  • Spices
  • Galata Tower (and me)
  • San Sebastien Cheesecake
  • Dog is going for a bike ride
  • Feed Me
  • I dunno
  • Clint
  • Column of Constantine 10 c AD
  • University
  • View from the Boat ride
  • Dinner with Chris and Halim
  • I just liked this building
  • Street
  • Hagia Sophia
  • Hagia Sophia
  • Street
  • Street

Istanbul is an amazing place and I wish we had stayed longer to wander more streets and see more sights.

One more short post on Istanbul and then we headed over to Amsterdam….

10 thoughts on “Istanbul in the Spring – Part 2 – 2024”

  1. Thank you for this lovely tour of Istanbul, guys! Lovely colors and structures. I followed a woman blogger who lives in tat city for a long time, she suddenly stopped blogging. Amsterdam is a city I’d love to see, it looks so beautiful in the photos! I follow someone on IG who lives there. Have a great week you two. 😊

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    1. you are welcome John. Istanbul is a very old city and there’s so much history there. We really enjoyed it. I wonder why the lady stopped blogging about it. I hope she’s OK. Maybe she just got tired of doing it. We are having a pretty good week but it is stinking hot here right now! It is 43 Celsius, which is about 109 Fahrenheit, I believe. I had to go out and do a couple of errands and it’s just like going out in a swimming pool to do them lol

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      1. I don’t know, Nia just vanished. Istanbul is where the Ottoman Empire was? Something like that. 109 is okay here but your humidity is what makes it so horrible, stay indoors in the AC if you have it. So miserable! I hope its gone by next month when I’ll be in Michigan.

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  3. There was a lot of photos and interesting info here Susan and I found the Cisterns fascinating – your pictures really do make it look a bit scary. Thank you as usual for the mini history lessons. How nice you hooked up with those friends from a prior trip. I like that Orient Express Cafe, the dog who might just fall off the motorbike and the cat posing so nicely for you. I dunno about the “body” either – who stole the mannequin’s head? Hmm.

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