This morning we were up bright and early to head to Podgorica Airport for our flight to Istanbul.
Arriving at our hotel we headed out for a walk to grab a bite to eat for a late lunch. Delicious fish wrap and kebab wrap were had along with a rather dubious sounding “Turnip drink”. Kevin didn’t mind it, I preferred to keep my lunch down!
We’re staying near the Galata Tower.
A small goal I had was to find a salon and get a pedicure-previous one having been done in Dublin, 3.5mo and 14 countries ago!
Kevin wandered the area and found both a lamp and Turkish Delight that took his fancy. He bought the Turkish Delight. (Or should it just be called “Delight” here?)
When I was done we had a drink and then headed back to our hotel to chill before our evening outing.
The boat dinner / show was nice. We had performances by a belly dancers and a traditional dancing group alongside beautiful evening views of the Bosphorous River.
Today we were up relatively early in order to find our way across the river on public transport, to the meeting point for a Yummy Istanbul food tour.
The tour had been recommended to us by Donna, Sarah’s friend of >47 years (that makes us sound old, which we definitely are not) and our Travel Manager, who did it a few years ago with her daughter.
The food tour started with a visit to the oldest Turkish Delight store in Istanbul.
It’s real name is Lokum.
We stopped at some market stalls, then ate breakfast at a tea salon. There was so much food to try – Simit (Turkish bagel) Ezine cheese, tulum (goat)cheese, olives, acuka(spicy paste), hazelnut paste, balkaymak (honey&clothed cream), menemen (hot dish), pastırma (dry meat), helva (with pistachios) – and this was only stop one!
From there we walked through the Egyptian Spice Market,
then caught a ferry to cross to the Asian side of Istanbul.
Here we walked and ate:
* Dolma (stuffed dried eggplant) and Ali Nazik meze ( Gözde Şarküteri)
* Pickle juice (Özcan Pickle Store) Özcan Turşucusu
* Lahmacun (Turkish Pizza) at Çinili Taş Fırın
* Beyran Soup (lamb soup) at Kimyon Restorant
* stuffed mussels (midye dolma) Kadıköy Midyecisi
* İskender Kebab at İskender Kebab Restorant
* baklava & turkish ice cream at Mado
By halfway through we were only able to share a dish, not have one each!
Kevin’s favourite dish was the lamb soup, mine was the Iskender Kebab. We both loved the baklava.
When the tour finished we got the ferry back to Karaköy, walked up a giant hill, had a beer then made it back to our hotel by about 6pm. It was a long day!
First thing on the agenda today was Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque which used to be a cathedral.
Access to the floor was not permitted because it is a prayer area (all the websites say there is free access to the floor), so the only option was to pay to go to the balconies -$80 pp!! – and most of the internal area was obscured by scaffolding!
Definitly not a good value site to visit!
We then entered the Grand Bazaar, one of the oldest and largest indoor markets in the world with 60+ streets of >4000 shops under the roof.
We were pleasantly surprised by how calm and unchaotic it was. One stallholder told us there has recently been some political issues that have resulted in multiple cruiseships cancelling or being cancelled stops at Istanbul. According to him, the daily visitor numbers are currently about half what they should be this time of the year. Still, for us it made it much more pleasant to not have to fight to move around.
We’re pleased to report that we left without a single parcel. However there may be a rug delivered to the house in the next week or two!
After about 3 hours in the bazaar we found an exit and a tram and bus back to our hotel.
Our Intrepid tour of Türkiye starts this evening, and we leave Istanbul tomorrow, though we’ll have another couple of days in Istanbul when it finishes in early September.
This morning we headed to the Blue Mosque
and the Hippodrome before leaving Istanbul.
An Unplanned Year 
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