Amster-shh!: Istanbul In April

I'm falling behind. Very behind. So behind infact that I won't be doing much in the way of words on this post. I've sadly forgotten some details, and it'll be difficult to give you the play-by-play. But I shall try with my photos as my guide.

This was my second visit to Istanbul and my second visit to many of the sites of Istanbul. It did not let me known. It continues to be an extraordinarily marvelous place.

Rachel and I arrived at our airbnb house super early in the morning. So we slept a good part of the day away being that we caught a red-eye flight into town. This time we stayed near Taksim rather than Sultanahmet, and it was a very wise choice. While Sultanahmet is lively during the day and the home of the lovely Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi Palace, it can be rather dead in the evenings. Plus it's tourist central. Taksim comes alive at night. So it was nice to hit up the sites during the day and then head back over the water in the evening for dinner and drinks.

Our first night there our lovely hosts (thank you Esra!) took us to a concert. I don't have any photos of this, but it was fun. I'm trying to remember the name of the artist…hopefully it'll come to me eventually. I think she was from Montreal. Beautiful voice.

Here are some photos to help me remember/guide the recollections of the trip:

Fish market. Nothing like a fish market to put a smile on your face. Just before the market we stopped for some rice-filled mussels. I don't care if they were baking in the sun, they were delicious and we definitely went back for more:

Our view of the river while enjoying our first apple tea near the fish market:

Spice market. Eye candy everywhere. Rachel and I bought a ridiculous amount of tea.

Hagia Sophia: I was utterly floored and tickled to see the dome without the scaffolding. I was expecting to see it as I had a few years previous, so to get to see it post-construction was an absolute treat. The scaffolding had been up for 17 years. A delightful surprise:

Scrambled up to this terrace I had been to on my last visit. It is the best place in the city to hear the call to prayer. I'm failing at finding the name at this moment. Its a little fancy and pricey but worth it. You are between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque with a view of the Bosphorus river. When the call to prayer starts you can hear it echoing throughout the whole city, a slight delay from mosque to mosque that leaves the prayer hanging in the air after it is over. And the staff was also very friendly.

Introducing Rachel to Turkish coffee. Yum!

Our hosts invited us to breakfast! How nice!

Grand Bazaar Day: Yes, we shopped til we dropped. Yes, we spent too much on our throw rugs. Mistakes were made. My haggling got better. It was still a ton of fun.

Rachel's slipper challenge. She didn't get them. And regretted it. I guess we'll have to go back Rachel.

Haggling over pillows...smiling for the camera.

We met some of our Amsterdam American friends down by the water and enjoyed a evening of dinner drinks and dancing. It was loads of fun.

Our house. In the middle of our street:

Not our house, but too pretty to not snap:

Terrace breakfast over the Bosphorus. Dare I say it was actually so hot we almost needed to move into the shade? But we did not! We held our ground. And it was grand.