A very nice morning on Day 2 in Istanbul, Turkey.
No tour today – the tours repeat on each day – we are planning to explore a little of the port area today.
Our first destination this morning is the Starbucks across the street to check on e-mails and send more pictures. We always get seats inside the cafe since that is non-smoking (but not non-flies). We spent a while in the Starbucks on line (the code we got yesterday still got us connected today). I got quite a bit of exercise shooing flies.
We checked out the park across the street from Starbucks. The park contains statues and is right on the water.
My “Little Mermaid”
Unknown Statue at the Park
After lunch on the ship, we decided – even though it was a bit warm -to walk to the Golden Horn Bridge. We originally wanted to go to the Kosher Restaurant for lunch but thought better of it (still some time left on this cruise).
The Golden Horn and Bosphorus were not that far away. Our route took us along a street I like to call the Home Depot street. This is because all of the stores were either appliance stores, equipment stores, or general hardware stores. Lots of smokers along the way combined with guys in business suits. We also ducked into a side street filled with hookah bars – places with comfy couches where you could puff on your hookah as long as you wanted. I really wanted a beer but we kept on our route.
Hookah Bar (no hookah for me, thanks)
The area near the bridge was filled with people yet the restaurants – though nice and everywhere – were somewhat empty. There were barkers trying to hustle up some business. It was too hot to actually go onto the bridge but we did make it to the shore using the shade for protection.
We didn’t find anyone who we felt we could trust our camera to so we did not get a picture together. We did, however, get some great shots of the Bosphorus and the surrounding architecture. The New Mosque can be seen in the background in the photo below.
The walk back to the ship seemed longer than the walk out. We were proud of ourselves for having ventured out into the Istanbul port area. It turned out to be nicer that we thought.
We did have some time to relax on deck.
Pedometer: 10,353 Steps; 4.9 Miles; 510 Calories; 2 hrs
First time poster here at your blog --- please keep it up! I'm enjoying the reads.
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