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Day Thirteen. Istanbul, Turkey
Day two in Istanbul, and we love the place. Hearing the call to prayer around the city sounds really nice, but it also helps that we are in a friendly country.
We quickly ate breakfast and headed down the gangway. We had not booked a tour for the day so we were excited at the prospect of exploring the city just the way we wanted to. We caught a shuttle bus from the ship to the port exit and had the most wonderful driver. It was only a five minute ride but his favourite song came on the radio and he turned it right up and started clapping. It was a traditional Turkish song and soon most of the bus was clapping along with him. We had to stop at one point as he nearly hit another bus which was probably due to the fact that he was driving with his knees!
We then caught a cab to the Basilica Cisterns, which is an underground cavern built in the 6th century to hold the city's water. It has huge columns, supporting the roof and each column is lit up. The path leads you to view two Medusa heads carved out of stone which support two of the columns.
After this we made our way back to the Grand Bazaar to finish off some shopping. We bought some scarves and Turkish tea, which is delicious. Steve and I then started the walk back to the ship, I think in total we walked 14km for the day! On our walk we stopped took some photos and watched the locals fish from the Golden Horn Bridge, there must have been hundreds fishing and to get the line in the water it is a 40 foot drop. We stumbled across a really nice restaurant for lunch and sat for a couple of hours and just took in the sights and enjoyed being in such a wonderful place.
We then got back on the ship where Steve watched some of the footy on his iPad. We then got dressed for dinner and headed to the top deck for a drink as we sailed out of Istanbul. This is a city we would come back to, the people are really friendly and welcoming, and is our favourite place we have been so far.
We headed inside for dinner where Steve had escargots (snails) in a garlic sauce. The food is 5 star quality and we also took full advantage of our drinks package before heading to bed about 10pm.
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Neil Sounds like you are having a great time. Continue to enjoy.