Istanbul, in fact

 

Istanbul is, in fact, great.  Hearing the call to prayer, especially from multiple mosques at once (even from the two continents at once) is exotic.  The Haggia/Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque are incredible.  And of course, Turkish food is scrumptuous.

The Blue Mosque (below) was originally built as a mosque and still functions as such.

The Haggia Sofia (below) was built three times as a church, then become a mosque and is now a museum.  This cat is called “Obama’s cat” I hear, because the president petted hi on a recent visit.

The Grand Bazaar (4000 different covered stores) and the spice market and dozens of other markets are impressive as well.  The food markets would put the Pike Place Market to shame (as would many of the markets we’ve seen on this trip) except that they haven’t started the crowd-pleasing tradition of throwing fish. 

Oh and Turkish delight is pretty good, though I can’t for the life of me tell what it is made from.

So, you might ask, what is surprising about this town? 

There are more cats that I can believe – on roofs, swarming the parks, in mosques, restaurants, the tourist info,  the train stations, you name it.  Bucharest was overrun by stray dogs, most of whom were friendly, but one followed us and unnerved me.  Cats are preferable.  Here, I think they help keep the pigeons at bay and they manage to not crap all over the sidewalks.

The other thing is the prices of tourist attractions (start the violins).  The Haggia Sofia was 20 lira (11 USD) – expensive but worthwhile.  One of the Ottoman palaces here (Topkapi) charges 20 lira to get in, 15 to get in to the harem and another 15 for the audio guide.  Too much!