Exploring Istanbul on our last day

Our last day in Istanbul saw us out in full form! We were determined to see some sights before our departure the following day so we thought the best way to do that would be to walk to the water and jump (literallky) on a ferry since Istanbul is surrounded by large volumes of water. It was a good bet.

This is a window full of desserts! they no them good here. one of my favourites was 'profiterole': a bowl full of creamy dark choc mousse and 3 profiteroles... Mmmm.. They sold rice cream here too but paled in comparison to mum's.
This on'e for you Martha. Ellie told me off and said I was as bad as you, but it had to be done, i'm sure you'll agree!
And then we hit the water...

This is for Joshua: Here is a boat exactly the same as the one we went on.We sat at the very back. It rocked in the water because there were many waves.
This is the view from the back of the boat, note sihlouette of mosques = very cool. The seagulls were following the boat and flying beside it to catch food people were throwing.

Lois: is was like 'The Winged Migration'... you woulda loved it!
Note buildings packed tightly in background. Fact I didn't know: Istanbul's population is approx 18 million people!!! I think Australia has around 22 million so just imagine that many people in such a small area of land.when you look at the buildings like you see them here, you wonder how they have room for roads...

This is the bridge that joins the European and Asian sides of Istanbul. It's very long. The balloons are on a string in the water and you can pay to shoot em with a gun... bit scary i thought.

Snapped these guys very discreetly, typical turkish men sitting around having a yarn..

Turkish vehicle, in case you couldn't tell. The flags were all over the back windows too.

There are heaps of these places set up along the water. Turkish tea shops. You buy it at the stall or from the men walking around and then you sit on the pillows and rugs and enjoy the view. Very cool. There is a myth about this building: a sultan built it for his daughter because his enemies were plotting to kill her. so he sent her there and the story goes that she loved fruit but couldn't get any cos there wasn't a connection to the mainland, so the enemy sent her a basket of fruit and inside was a daedly snake and it bit her and she died (that's what i was told), but apparently it was actually built as a guard tower.. they put a huge chain across the water from the other side of it to the other side of the water so any boats coming in or out had to go between it and the land where i was standing to take the pic. It was pretty cool to hang out and watch the sun set behind it. We waited until night had fallen before we took the ferry back. the view of the city by night from the water was fabulous. the camera didn't capture it because of the movement of the boat but i managed to get this one for you of the mosque where the boats pull in.


I hope you enjoyed sharing our outing in Istanbul! Next post will be from Thailand! If you wanna see mum and dad having a ball go to

www.annie-el.blogspot.com

Anisia xox

P.S. Here are some pics I found on this computer. I don't think it's stealing. I am appreciating them and helping others to appreciate them too... and if they didn't want other people looking at them they would have deleted them when they were done- like i am now going to do with the ones i put on this computer.

That's a whole lot of chicken... lucky i didn't take this pic... i would have been running the other direction...

OK. so the other pics are going in a new blog.