I Am In Turkey Now, # 1 Istanbul

I Am In Turkey Now # 1 Istanbul

Actually, I am back home now but wanted to give you the heads up that my pictures weren't loading. So now that I am back home, guess what? Now my pictures are loading so I will try to catch you up. Turkey was Awesome! I was not going to play tourist too much but I bought lots of stuff and took lots and lots of pictures. I decided to make a list of cities that we visited so that you could see the course that we took.

Here is the list of the cities and I have numbered them for you. We made a large circle on the west side of Turkey.

1.  Istanbul - our starting place
2.  Gallipoli
3.  Canakkale
4.  Troy
5.  Pergamon
6.  Izmir
7.  Ephesus
8.  House of the Virgin Mary
9.  Hierapolis
10.  Pamakkale
11.  Antalya
12.  Perge
13.  Aspendos
14.  Konya
15.  Goreme
16.  Cappadocia
17.  Ankara
18.  Istanbul - for the return home

The first day is arrivals and orientation.

A French lady that was sitting next to me on the plane told me that the color turquoise is from the green water on the coast of Turkey. Love that color! She married a Turk and after he passed, she comes to Turkey to visit relatives. She said the food in wonderful. That is pretty good coming from a French woman!

Upon arrival into Istanbul, after going through the passport checkpoint, I am making my way down to the exit. I am looking for a familiar name - Trafalgar Tours. There is a long row of tour providers and private name cards being held up and at the very end - the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - Trafalgar!  And my welcoming agent, Matt, well, whatever is the closest to that being translated from Turkish, and the first person I meet is Vivian and the second person I meet is from South Africa! Too many coincidences!

So, we are driving into town through rush hour traffic and I look around "to see what I can see" and I notice the beautiful tulips and pansies that decorate the sides of the freeway.

There are many different colorful arrangements that garnish the sides of the freeway.

And there are also trellis gardens that remind me of what I heard of as the hanging gardens of Babylon and I wonder if these are somewhat similar to those. What a great idea!

Now, take a look at that! There are vendors walking between the cars ON THE FREEWAY selling everything from flowers to water bottles to, well, other things, and not a single one of them got hit! That couldn't happen on the freeways in my hometown. You would really be taking your life into your hands!

When we were getting close to our hotel we saw lots of flags and asked what they were. They are campaign flags! There are national elections coming here in June.

Then we arrive at our lovely hotel, Raddiso Blu.

Take a look at this lobby!

 

and the chandelier!

Here is an upstairs picture looking down on the reception area. I wanted to show you a picture of the sheets of geodes that they used as paneling for the reception desk but I guess I didn't take the shot. They were beautiful! And I loved my room! 

Well, we had a welcome gathering and appetizers then were instructed about tomorrow's adventures.

Day 2 - Istanbul

So today we travel to Old Town Istanbul where there is the Topkapi Palace,

Haga Sophia,

the Blue Mosque (or is the back side of the Haga Sophia)

and the Hippodrome. Incredible beauty! Tiles, domes,

obelisks, fountains, statues. Incredible! So much history here! So much beauty! So much tourists! I could not keep track of how many buses were coming and going in that square

Then we see a unique sight - all these dogs laying around and we are worried about the dogs! So, we ask our tour guide. The dogs are wild dogs. The government spays and neuters them and then lets them run. Our guide describes them as "lazy" and that they are! They will not move for anyone or anything! They chose their spot to lie down and don't get up for anything! Interesting! We all seem to like personal interest stories like these, don't we?