Ah a long long day today. We left Malta on a plane at 5.50am so we were up at 1.30 and delivered to the airport by Miriam and Iro. We checked in and the flight was reasonably on time to Istanbul. However the kind people from the Turkish immigration decided to detain all the people with Maltese passports which, of course included me! It was also a silly idea because it was an air Malta flight so after waiting almost an hour standing around, the just returned our passports with no explanation and we left. Not what I needed this morning!

We were picked up from the airport and went straight to our hotel to drop our bags before being guided through the streets of Istanbul by our guide. We visited the Hippodrome (where the Romans had their chariot races), the Hagia Sophia - a beautiful Byzantine church that was converted to a mosque and is now a museum, the Topkapi Palace where they have an 86 carat diamond (and a stack of holy relics), the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar where after 30 mins we gave up and came back to the hotel! A long day and an early morning as we are off to Gallipoli! Night night!