4th and 5th, Istanbul

So after 33 days on the go it was time for a rest day. We went up to breakfast at 9am. There was the usual tomato, cucumber, eggs, bread, jam and cheese, but they also had cereal and fruit salad. We took our time and spent the next few hours updating the blog, uploading photos and just relaxing. At 2.30pm we set off to get some lunch before meeting up with Chris and Sharon at 4pm. We found Chris by the Theodosius Obelisk and we went back to his hotel and had a few drinks on their balcony and checked out the magnificent view from the roof top terrace. We had dinner with them in a little pide shop before heading back to the guest house.
5th We met up with Chris and Sharon outside the blue mosque ready for our walking tour of Istanbul. The inside was beautiful but very crowded. We dropped our camera cover in there and could not find it.

Our next stop was the burnt column or Çemberlitaş Obelisk then on to the grand bazaar. The bazaar is huge. We wandered through and bought a little bag to put the camera in then headed to the university. We wandered through the grounds and into one of the buildings where they had an art exhibition before heading off to the Kalenderhane Mosque It had been converted from a church and as the orientation of it was not facing mecca the carpet is at an angle unlike other mosques. The walls were made up of different coloured marble. Next we found the Şehezade Mosque which was very lovely and did not have the tourist hoardes that were in the blue mosque so it was much nicer. Stop number 5 on the walking tour was the Aquaduct where we found an adults fitness playground. We stopped there for a while and had a little play before heading off to the spice bazaar. We walked through the little back streets where they were selling hardware and other things for the locals. We came across a spot to have lunch which was obviously for the locals as we both ate for 6 lire. We also passed a little sweets shop and bought our first Turkish delight in Turkey. After the spice markets we walked over the Galata bridge which spans the Golden Horn, then caught the funicular up to Beyoğlu and walked along İstiklal Avenue. We were all feeling rather tired so stopped at a little cafe and had a hot chocolate along with some turkish delight to pick us up. We continued along the Avenue to Taksim Square before heading back down to the Galata Tower. This was the end of the walking tour so we headed back down to Karaköy tram stop and caught the tram back to Sultanahmet stop where we walked back down to the guest house. They were just finishing up cleaning our room when we arrived. We had a rest then went up to the roof terrace to write our journal and send the blog.We found out there was a spring festival on down at the foreshore so we set off with Chris to have a look. There were huge crowds of people heading in the same direction so we just followed them. It was an amazing site, every 50 meters or so there were people playing instruments and others dancing around them.

We bought some dinner at a little caravan selling hotdogs. We had to buy tickets at one place then hand them over to get our food at another.

We wandered around watchingpart of a concert, all the locals were singing along and dancing to whatever was being sung. It was very colourful and reminded us of New Years Eve in the city, people wandering around drinking and having a good time. There were all age groups and they had fire works. There was a light show on one of the old city walls.