Istanbul – Sunday, October 12, 2014

We rounded the Golden Horn and approached the Bosphorus near our pier about 7am this morning.  Skies were just getting light but there was cloud cover all day.  Not much sunshine but not any rain to speak of either!  Good day for photos!

We met our guide, Tibet, yes, just like the country, and we were off!  Sadly, Michele had a horrible night and has contracted a miserable head cold so she stayed behind and nursed herself.  We all really missed her but she insisted that Tom go ahead so it was just the five of us in our own mini-bus!  Everyone had a row to themselves!

We toured the Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, the Hippodrome and the Blue Mosque.  We also had a typical Turkish lunch that was very enjoyable.  The Commodore and I soon realized how lucky we were when we did this trip a few years ago when we had all the major sights to ourselves!  We never saw a line or a crowd and that is all we saw today!  The line to enter the Blue Mosque was nearly 40 minutes!  Space Mountain in July takes less time!  Once inside, there were hundreds of people and the smell of “feet” quite pronounced!  Everyone has to take their shoes off to enter and then carry their shoes around in plastic bags that are provided.  Either the plastic bags magnified the smell or there were several hundred people with really stinky feet!  Ewww!  Needless to say, the Commodore and I were thrilled to have already taken many pictures on the last trip so we used our feet to get away from the other feet!

We were amazed at the number of dogs and cats that live in and around these national treasures.  They are just “street” animals and lie around and sleep all over the grounds of these places.  None are neutered and I can’t imagine how many there really are!

Our guide was fantastic and she was full of interesting tidbits although I don’t know one Sultan from another. 

We ended the tour by, yes, again, visiting a rug merchant!  It is such a kick to see their performance as they whip out carpet after carpet in a choreographed act!  Of course, we bought one!  We are running out of floors at home so this one is a runner.  We both really liked it!  No jewelry this time but they sure had some pretty things.

We arrived back at the ship around 4:30 and had plenty of time to spare since 6:30 was the “all aboard” and we sailed shortly after 7pm this evening.  Michele and Tom skipped the dining room dinner so it was just the four of us with Luis, the waiter, in rare form again this evening.  We laugh so much it is hard to eat!

Tomorrow is Kusadasi (the port for Ephesus) and we don’t arrive until noon so we get a bit of a late morning!  We have another private tour for the six of us and we hope Michele is better and can join us.

Sorry I don’t have as many funny passengers to report on but since this is such a large ship and we’ve had so many tour days we hardly see the same people twice!  Everyone has also been on time for all the sailings so we haven’t seen any late pier runners!

I’ll keep looking!

XOXOXOXO

M