Istanbul

Saturday, February 24 to Monday, Februari 26, 2014

Saturday: MARSEILLE to ISTANBUL (Constantinople)

Distance from Marseille to Istanbul is about 2500km by road (the journey goes France/Italy/Slovenia/Croatia/Bosnia-Herzegovina/Serbia/Bulgaria/Turkey), a 30 hours journey.
By plane it's about 2000km distant (3h flight).

Istanbul, 14 Million inhabitants, 3rd largest city of the world.
Turkey counts 75 million inhabitants.

Taking the Pegassus flight from Marseille to Istanbul, a three hours flight.

Istanbul picture taken in the latest Metro line, opened October 2013.

Crossing continents, 60 meters under the sea.

Dinner cooked in a clay pot.

Avoid this tourist-trap-restaurant: 'Sirkeci Restaurant'!

Sunday: Discovery of Istanbul, Hagia Sophia (Sancta Sophia), the Blue mosk( and many other mosks), Whirling Sufi dancers, and a fresh-fish sandwich dinner.

Soft drinks stall.

Many Lacoste shirts, offered at 3€ per shirt, four of them for 10€.

Of course I also bought a Rolex watch in the next shop, at a good price too (lol).

It was not clear to me wether this person was travelling with this box of (fake?) dollars,

or wether she was trying to sell them.

Spicy spices.

Grilled chestnuts seller.

Salty cheese strings, very tasty despite the nasty look!

 Sancta Sophia Basilica, converted into Mosk after the religion war,

now World Heritage museum.

Marvelous Byzantine Mosaic in Sancta Sophia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia

 Another beautiful one.
 

The blue mosque.

 The blue mosque.
'Blue' because of the blue ceramic tiles and the blue stained glass windows.

 The Bosphorus, boundary between Europe and Asia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosphorus

 Whirling Sufi Dervich dansers performance at the Hodjapasha dance theatre.
Not allowed to make pictures during the performance,
I made this suggestive one from a puppet in the lobby.
It was an outstanding experience.

 The dance performance (picture stolen from the internet).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi_whirling

 These guys  assemble fish sandwiches at a rate of 8 per minute.

Buy, eat the pickles and then drink the pickles vinegar (1 Lire, 0.75€) with the fish sandwich.

You find the pickles from another stall around.

A very last (shared) dessert from Mustapha (with a big mustache).

Tuesday.

Topkapi palace, the royal residence of the Ottoman Sultans until 1856.
Here the rooms of the ten fafourite harem concubines .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkapi_Palace

Topkapi palace garden.

Topkapi palace, the "Golden Road".
The sultan used this passage to the harem, the sultan throwing golden coins,
 to be picked up by the concubines at festive days (it is said...).

Topkapi palace, Bosphorus view.

Entrance for the grand bazar.

What are these guys waiting for???
(they were just queuing for 20 meters to get their kebab, nothing else)

Suleyman the magnificent mosque.
Istanbul major mosque, built in 1950.

Suleyman the magnificent mosque.

Ayranci Street.  200 year old "konaks", last examples from the buildings from old times.

Featuring a Jaguar car...

Cat-paradise-country (very, very few dogs).

Second oldest underground line of the world, opened in 1875.

Nostalgic tram line: Tünel to Taksim.

 "Polis" car driving through the park to negotiate an orange juice.

Bosphorus, the Bosphorous bridge, and air pollution...

(Click to EXIT)