Istanbul

Monday 16th of July



As mentioned earlier, Friday was a very lazy day because of the bus trip. Honestly, I fell asleep almost every time I sat down anywhere. I don't even remember the last time being as tired. After taking mini-naps around the city for the beginning of the day, I slept for 2-3 hours in the afternoon. That helped as much as to give some energy to go to Hammam, a Turkish bath, which was an... interesting experience. We went to a big room full of washing dishes on the sides, temperature being between around 40-50 degrees. Then we just sat there for twenty minutes, after which we got massages from a Turkish guy, which was short but painful. After that we stayed on the sauna for some while, so overall we stayed there over two hours. The state of dehydration and starvation was quite complete after that, so it was time to go eating. We got accompanied by a Korean girl and we found a small pizza place on the street next to our hostel. Turkish pizza + Ayran was a perfect combination at the time.



Saturday was a much more energitic day than the previous one, and we spent most of the day doing sightseeing around the city. Istanbul is a huge city with lots of different areas, and you can really see only a glimpse of the city in one day. We spent most part of Saturday discovering Sultanahmet, where we saw for example the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia Mosque,which are located right next to each others and are among the most popular sights in Istanbul. It would've been nice to go inside the Hagia Sophia also, because it's supposed to be very beatiful inside, but the entrance fee was too much for us this time. Instead we went inside the Basilica Cistern, a huge undrground water storage, which is once again restored for the public. When returning to the hostel we also took an underground furnicular. We didn't know in advance that it was underground, so the view from the windows was slightly disappointing... Right next to our hostel we found Galata Tower, which offers awesome views from Istanbul. Unfortunately it's packed of tourists, which makes the experience less nice... still worth the money in my opinion. Then again, I always love the places high above the ground where you can have a great view. But you could actually realize the size of this place from up there. Rest of the evening was filled with walking in Taksim area and eating salads...

Hagia Sophia Mosque

Blue Mosque

Basilica cistern

Roof terrace view

Galata Tower

The view from the Galata Tower

Sunday was a day for a boat trip! We woke up ”early” to reach the first boat, but surprise surprise, there were people swimming from Asia to Europe so all the morning ferries were cancelled. Well we got a ferry couple of hours later and it was pretty awesome. Sitting on the deck enjoying the sun with a small breeze all the time... life was good. And then came the dolphins. Maybe a dozen of them got interested of our bat and started jumping around it. Funny animals. On the island where we landed we climbed up to a castle with some great views. Afterwards I ordered fish in a restaurant, as far as I can remember it was the first time in my life! Swordfish, and it was pretty ok, so maybe I'll even do it again one day. We also heard many Finnish and Swedish families on the island for some reason... Oh and btw if you are wondering about the lack of pics from here, I did have my camera with me, only I forgot my memory card in my laptop... so no pics of dolphins this time.



Our Monday was quite relaxed. We went to the Grand Bazaar, and left the place in unison quite soon. Too many people, too hectic, too much things we aren't going to buy. The positive thing was, you were actually able to look at the shops without someone immedietaly trying to sell you something. I was quite surprised. After a two-hour siesta we spend the rest of the day walking around and fiilistellen the last day of our trip. Tomorrow we'll just need to check-out and then it is time to go to back to Finland...



Ok, I'll post one more time after this to do some summary, then I'll close this blog. :)