Istanbul!

Here is a map of the section of Istanbul that we were in.


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I thought that the pink arrow is where the ship docked, at the tip of the "Golden Horn," but in fact that is not where we docked. But it did not matter because we took a ship excursion. This was our first ship excursion. There were hundreds of people trying to get onto busses at the asme time. Once we were on the bus, the traffic was pretty bad, but the tour itself was great. Also we did not have long lines in most of the places because we were the only ship here. Sometimes there are three or four ships here at the same time!.

The green arrow is the Topkapi Palace.

The yellow arrow is the Hagia Sophia, or St. Sophia as the guide called it.

The purple arrow is the Blue Mosque.

The aqua arrow is the Grand Bazaar.

After the Blue Mosque we went to a carpet making lecture (or sales pitch), then walked to the Grand Bazaar. There are 4000 shops in the covered bazaar and about 14,000 in the area. Wow! mostly they were tourist shops of souvenirs mixed with tourist shops of jewelry, leather, carpets, spices. Pashminas are the tourist item de jour.

Oh no! She is speaking french. I know no Turkish. Sorry.

More later.