My trip to Istanbul, Turkey

Hello friends,

Today I will start a new thread of posts on Istanbul in Turkey. I visited Istanbul back in February 2009. It was cold and rainy, but I always wanted to go and see Hagia Sophia, the former Byzantine basilica and current museum (Ayasofya Müzesi).

Funny enough, Hagia Sophia features in the film Inferno (2016) that I saw recently, based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. The film also features Venice, which I have also visited and written about.

I arrived at Istanbul late at night, so I checked in at my hotel, and asked about guided tours available. They told me that I could actually hire a guide and a driver for a day at a very reasonable cost, which I did.

The next morning the guide came to pick me up from the hotel. Istanbul is a transcontinental city, straddling the European Continent and the Asian Continent. So the guide took me to a nice café at the Asian side of the city quite high up on a hill, to enjoy the panoramic view of the city, and the bridge crossing the Bosphorus strait.

Transcontinental view of Istanbul and the Bosphorus strait

There was a fire burning in the fireplace which made it feel very cosy. I reckon most people there at the time were locals, as you normally wouldn't get many tourists like me at this time of the year.

A charming café at Istanbul

After that, we went to the Beylerbeyi Palace, a beautiful palace at the Asian side of Bosphorus. I will show you the pictures I took from that place on the next post, as they are too many.

Then he dropped me off at the center of the city, so I roamed a bit, had lunch, and then decided to go on a boat cruise along the Bosphorus. Some of the boats there were actually rather colorful.

I just wish I had done this cruise in the summer, because it's a very picturesque one. Unfortunately winter dulls everything out.

Mosques dominating the European skyline of Istanbul

A skyscraper next to a historic mosque

Grand buildings on the Bosphorus

The Ortaköy Mosque

The Bosphorus bridge

The ancient towers and walls of Istanbul

And that's the end of this post. I hope you liked it, and that you will follow me in my next one about the luscious Beylerbeyi Palace. Have a good day and speak to you soon!