We have spent the last three days as tourists in this amazing city.The weather also turned up trumps as it has been hot each day.We visited a number of sites including the grand bazaar where Jackie bought her outfit for Iran as did all the other girls in the trip. We also went to the blue mosque, the Topkia Palace and the Haghia Sofia, these had an Interesting history and fantastic architecture. As this period is a holiday time, it was very busy, but even so, it added to the hustle and bustle of the city, but increased the queues when visiting the sites. Everybody on the trip came back from their days out and enthused about what they had seen and experienced. On the first night we drank and ate on the rooftop terrace and tried the hookah pipes, even Jackie!
On one of our walks we got chatting to to some lads snorkel fishing, they offered us tea from their small traditional pot and so we sat on the banks of the Bosforus drinking tea and chatting to people, neither of us spoke each others language, but a good time was had by all. After the photo we made our way off following the old city walls to the spice market and more crowds.
By the end of the third day we wanted a break from the crowds as we had been visiting the Topkia Palace which is big but full of coach tours. All the girls dressed up in their outfits and we made our way to the Iranian Embassy where we passed away three hours completing our visa applications The tour leader, Polly, was told they would be ready in ten days time! This has now been reduced to three(hopefully). But we move on after the embassy visit straight away and onto our next stop in Turkey.