Istanbul - Journey's End

We were off on another jaunt about Istanbul today to hit some of the remaining highlights. First off was the Sultanahmet Mosque, better known by the rest of the world as the Blue Mosque.

It got the nickname from the blue hue that the interior takes on due to mosaics and stained glass. It's a pretty awesome place to worship.

Immediately adjacent to the Sultanahmet Mosque is the Hippodrome, a former open area arena/theatre. Today it is dominated by the 3500 year old Obelisk of Theodosius.

We then headed off to find the largest mosque in Istanbul, Suleymaniye Mosque. To get there, our straightest line was through the heart of the Grand Bazaar. They were having some electrical issues today with most shops in the dark. You can tell from the shafts of light in this photo that they were really depending on ambient light.

There's a lot of construction going on in Istanbul and a lot of it on our route seemed to be connected with the University. Suleymaniye wasn't as easy to find as we expected given its size, but we finally found this gigantic mosque.

No mosque may contain any images of things or people. Compared to Sultanahmet, this one was even more austere.

Adjacent to Suleymaniye were some more great views looking out over the Golden Horn.

We tried to avoid hills on today's walk and mostly did so, but we still saw another interesting section of the city. The skies were a pristine blue today and although the temperature wasn't supposed to pass 15 C. it felt hotter than that in the sun. An open terrace was therefore a must for lunch. The hotel on the corner, not more than 50 metres from ours had the best rooftop terrace in the area, towering above all other hotels. As a result, fabulous 360 views were available.

For November 4th, this terrace lunch was a bonus. Packing was the next order of business. We borrowed Jackie and Tony's bag, because despite sending a box home, we were still in trouble weight wise. Our final dinner of the vacation was in Kybele, once again a stone's throw from our hotel. Our hotel did have a restaurant, by the way, just not a very interesting or affordable one. One important thing we learned about Turkey, is that things are a lot cheaper here than anywhere we have been on this journey.

So this winds up another edition of my travelogue. Tomorrow morning we catch a 3:15 am shuttle to the airport where we fly to Amsterdam and then home with KLM. It's been an amazing trip! I think my blog will bear witness to that. La vie est belle!!!