Turkey Day 1 2026

Steps 24,300

Nov 12 and 13

Arrive in Istanbul - Largest City in Turkey, but not the Capital.  We started with our first flight from Moncton at 12:30PM on Thursday, a 5.5 hour wait in Montreal that included a visit with Jill, Robin, Jake and Glen at Moes for lunch, then to Frankfurt for another 5 hour wait until our final flight to Istanbul with arrival at around 6PM on Friday night.  

Immigration was about 30 minutes, our luggage was waiting for us when we reached the carrousel.  Checked luggage for the first time in years, hoping to find a few Christmas presents while we are here.  Easy to find our pickup to our hotel, but waited about 30 minutes for the car.  Only 4 of us in the van, took about 1 hour to get to our hotel, lots of traffic.  Our hotel is by far the nicest room we have had on any of these Exoticca vacations, 2 bathrooms, a huge living room, and a massive bedroom.  We met up with a orientation guide who went over some things with us, and he told us the rest of the stay would not have rooms like this.   

Population of over 15 million in Istanbul.  It is a city on two continents; about two-thirds of its population live in Europe and the rest in Asia. It straddles the Bosphorus, one of the worlds busies waterways.  Looking forward to exploring tomorrow.

Nov 14 Istanbul day 1

Slept pretty well last night.  Buffet breakfast is included on our tour, a great breakfast, but it is busy.  Hotels this size should definitely have 2 buffet lines.  Saw 2 people that were definitely on the road to recovery,  one looked like a nose job, the other hair transplant, Istanbul is famous for getting hair transplants.

A bus picked us up for about a 30 minute drive to visit Suleymaniye Mosque with our tour group -Located on the the third hill of Istanbul, one of the largest mosques in Istanbul, from the 1500's.  Our bus was partly filled with the Spanish group, including the couple we shared the van from the airport with, and 6 english speakers.  One of the couples is from Fredericton, not sure if we have ever met another couple from NB on these trips.  Once we got to the mosque we split up with guides for each language, the other guide had come from the hotel where people paid upgrades.  Since we only drove about 20 minutes I'm not sure how much closer they could have been, and they definitely wouldn't have had nicer rooms than we have.

After visiting the mosque as a group we spent the afternoon visiting around Istanbul on our own.  Everyone else had paid an extra $150/person US to have an afternoon tour, we decided to just go at our own pace.

Grand Bazaar - One of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. 61 covered streets with 4.000 shops. Among the world's most-visited tourist attractions with 91,250,000 annual visitors. Felt like we saw at least 1 million of them today, it was crowded but still fun to see.   

Hagia Sophia - Was originally a church, then a museum.  It was the worlds largest church for more than 500 years.  It is now a mosque that practices.  We actually hired a guide to go through and skipped the long line up.  Lots of excellent history and he was very open to any questions we had about his religion.  We were probably about 1 hour visiting with him inside.  It was interesting to see how they have restored some of the original paintings and mosaics from church time.  The outside of the buildings were pretty much covered in scaffolding, so not really impressive.  I am sure there is always some kind of restoration going on in here.

Blue Mosque - Constructed in the early 1600's.   You do not have to pay to enter and you just get in line to go through this mosque.  It is closed during certain times of the day for prayers so we hit this one up early.  To enter any of these mosques women must have their arms covered to the wrists, legs covered, and hair covered.  Men and women must both remove their shoes.  When we visited Japan we were told we would need to remove our shoes often, well Japan was nothing compared to how often we removed our shoes today.  We also visited the tomb of Sultan Ahmet I along with members of his family, including his wife Kösem Sultan and various royal children located next to the Blue Mosque

Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque was another stop.  From the 16th century.  Unique to us because of all the beautiful blue and white tile work.

Hippodrome - A square in Istanbul that was at one time a circus, sporting and social center which could hold 100,000 spectators.  We visited the Obelisks that are in the Hippodrome, and the Sphendone wall which is a part of the wall that is left.

Our original plan was from here to go and visit a bit of the Asia side but even though we had beautiful weather for the morning by 4PM the forecast was for lots and lots of rain so we decided to call it a day, Asia day tomorrow.

The bus ticket machine required us to buy a card first and then load it up, it started to rain, so splurged on a taxi instead for about 1/2 the time a bus would have taken us to get back to the hotel.  It started to pour on the way back.

Up to the room, rest up a bit, then to the gas station for something for supper.  Yep, feels like we are back in Japan at 7/11 getting something to eat.

An early night as we have a full day tomorrow, and the next 10 days or so.

On the bus to old town Istanbul

On the way to our first stop. Only mosque that we have seen in bricks

you can see part of the old city wall in many locations

Suleyman Mosque

The wash up before prayers

At the mausoleums at the mosque

The back of the mosque

Example of an Ablution where you wash before entering the mosque for prayers, sometimes they are located outside, and more modern ones are inside with hot water.

Backpacks to carry supplies into the market

Our first view of a Grand Bazaar sign

Many options to get money out

Put a few coins in to feed the cats, many many cats around

Hagai Sophia outside under lots of refurbishment

Many many corn vendors around

Courtyard inside Hagia Sophia

Domes inside Hagia Sophia

the tomb of Sultan Ahmet I along with members of his family, including his wife Kösem Sultan and various royal children located next to the Blue Mosque

Museum with artifacts from Hagia Sophia

Obelisk of Theodosius, an ancient Egyptian obelisk that stands in the Hippodrome. Carved in 15 century BCE and moved to the Hippodrome in 390 AD

Serpent Column in the hippodrome.  479BC from Greece

Walled Obelisk in the Hippodrome, different as it is stone masonry

Sphendone wall, part of what is left of the walls of the hippodrome

Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque. From the 16th century. Unique to us because of all the beautiful blue and white tile work.

Outside the Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque. This was the entrance where you had to take off your shoes then they had cubbies where you could store them. Our guide last night told us to bring a bag and carry them with us because they have been known to be stolen

Yes, squat toilets here, but only one place today only had squat

German fountain in the Hippodrome

Beautiful fountain with Blue Mosque in the background

Inside Hagia Sophia, lots of marble from all over the world 

Notice the marble urn inside the Hagia Sophia from the 3rd or 4th century BC 

Original chandelier converted from hanging oil lamps

One of the mosaics from when it was a church

Notice how the earthquakes and weight of the dome have knocked this column off center

Outside abolition still in use

Turkish coffee and tea

Bought some Kadayif to try, filo dough layered with pistachios and soaked in sweet sugar syrup, yummy but very sweet

Side street going into the great bazar 

coffee delivery 

Turkish delight shop

In the old section, you can see the brick ceiling

one of the busy side street from the bazar

Using his head for food delivery 

Another bazar near the river on our way to catch a ride home

Took a taxi home.