We depart Hilton Head Island airport on Tuesday, 3:30 PM and transit through Charlotte and London, to arrive the next day in Istanbul, Turkey at 4:30 PM. We are met and escorted to the Peninsula Hotel, Istanbul (Great Hotel!). Dinner then sleep before starting our 5 days touring this historical city. Turkey is 85% Muslim and Istanbul has over 3000 Mosques in the city reflecting its history as capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empire. We visit three of the most famous Mosques in the first day and a half of our visit. The first thing we view is the Obelisk of Theodosius an ancient Egyptian obelisk of Pharaoh Thutmose III, first erected during the 18th dynasty of Egypt. It was re-erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the 4th century AD. We get an early reminder that we will be learning about really ancient history here in Turkey.
We the start our visits to a sampling of Mosques in Istanbul, three up close and personal.
The three that we tour are, St. Sophia Mosque, Blue Mosque and Suleymaniye Mosque, I assure you, that was sufficient. We had a typical lunch which is very good and very filling. During our visit we visit both the Spice and huge Grand Bizaar, which are made up of hundreds of stalls.
We visited the Topkap Palace which was the palace and administrative headquarter for the Ottoman Sultans for 400 years.
We visit lots of shops in the Bazaar’s with merchants selling just about everything. We stop at the rug merchants, a food tasting experience, and on and on, plus we do endless people watching. The ice cream stall is part magic show and sweet sales.
We visit the Pera section, the Galata Tower, Karadoy district and which gives us a sense of the diversity of Istanbul. A break for coffee and a sweet then we see “the” Catholic church amongst the mosques in this city.
On our last day in Istanbul we have a private boat cruise on the Bosporus. The waterway is busy with freighters, cruise ships, tour boats, ferries, and patrol boats. Truly a crossroads of the world. On the Istanbul shore there are all sorts of interesting building, from fortresses, to universities, government buildings, top level hotels, and new and old mansions of the wealthy from around the world.
Its a beautiful day and a unique panorama. We disembark in the Bebek section where there is a weekend festival so we enjoy lunch and finish our touring of this part of this incredible historic city. Mosques, Mosques and more Mosques. tomorrow its off to a much different and also historic part of Turkey, where the Mosque density is much lower.
Tomorrow we are off to Izmir.