We're back in Athens now, so it's time to catch up on the last 10 days.

On Sun. the 12th, we arrived in Istanbul. We left our bags in the high-tech locker at the train station. Kim bought a map and we started walking. First stop was Tokapi Palace, home of the sultans for almost 400 years.

The Gulhane Park gardens outside the palace were very impressive. There's no way to show how extensive they were. There must have been literally hundreds of thousands of tulips alone.

This is in the gardens - not a sultan but Ataturk - the first president of modern Turkey.


The weather on Sunday was really awful. It was cold, damp and windy. Istanbul is significantly north of Athens and on Sunday we really felt it.


Turkey's currency is the Turkish Lira - 2 for every one Euro. We changed some money at the
train station but found that a lot of places would not only accept Euros but US dollars and British
Pounds as well. Interestingly, they have Lira that differ in size for the same denomination. I got two different 5 Lira bills: one smaller than the other. It was explained to me that one was a newer bill and one older, and that the older bills were being phased out but were still accepted.


Just one of the windows at Topkapi.


Kim and I stopped at a place for coffee/tea. The street-level floor was a bakery and the floor above had the tea house. It was nice to sit inside for a little while and drink something warm. We had 3 1/2 days in Istanbul and we weren't going to kill ourselves trying to see everything.

The Topkapi entrance.


As it happened there was a major bicycle race in Istanbul that day. In addition to the regular tourists, many streets were closed and lined with spectators watching.

After a few hours of wandering around, looking at
sites and drinking tea, we headed back to the
train station to get our bags. We could have walked to our hotel but between the weather and Kim's aches, we decided to try the tram. It conveniently had a stop right outside the train station, but it was packed. I mean we were really like sardines. Some people just gave up and got off, while others pushed their way on.


To make my weekly call to my mom, I went around the corner from our hotel. There were multiple shops that offered discounted international calling. I chose one to call from. After I finished I was offered tea. Just one of the
many times during this trip.

We stayed at the Assos Hotel. We booked the place online and found it to be a very comfortable place, although if you didn't know where it was, you'd never find it. Although not far from the Grand Bazaar, it was not on a main road: in a regular working-class neighborhood, but not far

from the action.

We had a room one floor up from the lobby - very

spacious and comfortable.

I took this non-tourist picture because I liked the look of an "average" street.

We know hotel food is usually not the best meal in town, but we were both happy not to have to leave the hotel the first evening. We were only one of three tables in use in the dining room that night. The hotel had about 50 rooms, so you know most people weren't eating dinner there.


I figured out our food for the day up to that point had consisted of the three Bs: bread, borek and baklava.

One of the many views of St. Sophia. More about that in a future post.

We spent a little time down in the lobby bar having tea/drinks.


The hotel restaurant was on the 6th floor. Here is a picture of the view from our table during dinner. Not sure when you can make out the ships out in the harbor.


Some quick comparisons to Athens I wrote down after 12 hours in Istanbul:

-not as any dogs as Athens;
-generally things were cheaper;
-Athens is not exactly flush with public toilets (pun intended) but Istanbul is worse. When you can find a public toilet it's usually a pay toilet and not a very nice one at that;
-tour guides outside Topkapi did not constantly bother you to try to get you to pay for their services - a huge difference from the Acropolis, where one approaches you every minute or less (no exaggeration).
-Istanbul has lots more green spaces than Athens;
-Lots less graffiti.


The view of our working-class neighborhood from our hotel window.

More of Istanbul in tomorrow's post.