India/Istanbul Trip Day 11: Walking all over town getting lost (3/7)

Woke up and had the hostel breakfast. Meats, cheeses, tea, bread, etc. like a normal hostel breakfast; small in selection but sufficient to get the day started and not bad for the price (included with room). We had booked a free historical walking tour around the old town for this morning so we head over to the meet up spot and find out that there are 2 groups going, spanish and english with the spanish group having like 15 people in it whereas the english only had 4 or 5 (usually they require 6 but since it is free, the lady wanted some tips instead of none so she took us).

Start the day looking at a waving flag. My kind of day.

Beautiful mosque in the morning.

In case we forgot where we were, found a sign to remind us.

Cool looking art as we walked around the city.

Will leave this right here for your enjoyment. This was above the entrance to one of the museums in the old town.

Anyone thirsty? German Fountain still works and is beautiful.

Inside and out.

Cats chilling in the streets.

Obelisk. There were 3 of these things in a row right near the fountain.

See they even have informational mini obelisks to tell you about what you are looking at.

German fountain in the background along with one of the minarets.

Deep dark blue with the gold overlay, great color scheme with beautiful calligraphy.

Ended back in the square so had to take a few more pics.Blue mosque from a different angle.

Ominous clouds but mosque looking good.

Was an informative tour and was extremely light on the walking compared to many other walking tours I have done (some of which included traveling on rail during them). After the tour, we walk towards the spice bazaar and stop at Sehzade cag Kebap to have lunch (another place recommended by the hostel staff). The place was busy and I liked the mentality of it, small quarters and they just place you wherever you will fit and you wind up sitting at a table across/next to random people; quick pace of ordering and serving to have high turnover; great food, simple menu to limit options/choosing and just a nice atmosphere. We finish up and head down the street to the spice bazaar which has a gorgeous inside with shops lining the entire inside of the L shaped building; many of the shops were the same in the things they sold, some of which were right next to each other. We slowly walk through window shop just looking around and watch a bit before exiting the other side where we find ourselves in a giant open area with a mosque (which is under renovations) on one side and people setting up their mats to begin prayer all long the square and walkway outside the mosque.

That building straight ahead was a hookah bar. Small but looked cool. Random street we took to get where we are going.

Some cool graffiti near one of the main metro stops.

It was in this moment that I remembered that Troy is in Turkey. So much history and I would imagine beautiful sights around the country, cant wait to go back and explore.

Inside of the Spice Bazaar.

View looks kinda different during the day.

We go up into the mosque and sit in the back visitor area watching the prayer leader inside guide the prayer (at least that was my interpretation of what was happening) for a little bit. Saw the men walking onto the floor and setting up their spot while the women would go into a room similar to the one we were in in the back to do their prayer. Inside had a bunch of renovations happening as well. We quietly leave through the back, put our shoes back on and then go back out to the square where people have filled in almost every inch with their mats, cardboard, etc. on which they could do their prayers. We watch this impressive sight for a bit before walking along the river a little bit and hit the head real fast (they have public bathrooms around town that you can use your rail card to get in and out paying 1TL to use. Was annoying at first that you had to pay for a public restroom but then realized A) its really cheap B) they can use those payments to maintain said bathrooms so that you actually get working facilities and not a hole in the ground. We decide to do the Bosporus boat tour we had heard about so we head to the boat, get our seats and wait for it to begin. People pack onto the top where there are rows of seats facing each way off the side of the boat. We begin the tour and not sure if people brought food on or they were selling the bread on the boat but everyone was throwing bread/food for the sea gulls and they were swarming the boat (never seen this many birds swooping trying to get some food).

Look at all the flying rats.

Little silhouette action. 

The coast has all kinds of fantastic architecture.

They just ruin all kinds of potentially good pictures.

Palace along the waterway.

Huge estates up and down the river.

Turkey flag flying high.

Beautiful mosque where we turned around and started to head back (we will see this mosque again soon).

Starting to turn around.

One of the many bridges that cross the Bosporus. 

Mosque we saw in the distance from the hostel.

Homes build into the land. Pretty cool.

Eastern part of Istanbul seems to be more modern looking.

Same mosque as before from further down the river.

Flags flying over a waterfront palace. Like I said, there were quite a few of these along the water.

Mosque across the way.

Older looking place. Still pretty huge and impressive.

Private dock area for the above building. Not sure how this is used but it looks pretty ornate.

I mean just look at this doorway into the grounds.

Lighthouse on a tiny island.

Those look familiar? Hagia Sofia and Blue mosque left and right respectively.

This is an example of why I love some clouds at sunset.

Just a few of the birds that were attacking the boat earlier.

The bridge west of the boat terminal had a rail stop in the middle of it.

Mosque far off in the distance above said rail stop.

Beautiful Istanbul at dusk.

I was not a happy camper for 2 reasons: 1) half of the pictures that one would take had birds all in them ruining the focus and the picture, and 2) you feed that many birds people are bound to be shat on - naturally I was one of those people which increased the wrath I felt towards these people. 30 minutes into the tour people ran out of food so the birds went away and I was able to start getting some good pictures and enjoying the cruise not worrying about how much more I would be shat on. Lots of great sights and architecture along the coast and felt nice (near the end got a little chilly as I only had on a tshirt and before the windchill it was probably 55-60F and no more sun). Get back to the coast, try the famed fish sandwich from a nearby boat, it was bland tasting and still had many of the tiny bones in it (I hate lil fish bones in my food; on a side note, watching them prepare the fish, scooping out the spine, etc. was a cool process to watch). I ate what I felt like and then tossed the rest. We walk to the north side of the bridge to make our way to Galata Kulesi (the Galata tower) which included some pretty steep alley walking with steps. Get to the tower and decide to take the walk to Taksim Square (which is supposed to have a great night life on the way and this street with shops and lots of people). Using the map we have we start walking and realize we are lost and walking along a main car thoroughfare so we decide to head to the right as that is the only logical direction to go (street/river to left/straight). We start walking up more of these step-steep alleys and eventually start finding these awesome alley way bars, small coffee stands where people sit and drink, smoke hookah, play games, and just chill, and seeing more people walking around so we assume we are on the right path. As we open up to the correct street we should have been on the whole time, we get some gelato and start walking seeing all the stores, the bars/restaurants tucked back in the alleys off the main street, and eventually go into a vegan Lebanese restaurant (Falafel Karim Sahyoun) for some dinner. Tons of delicious food and not too expensive. Continue walking and decide to go down random alley way and get some beers, so we find a bar called Camp and grab some drinks. After we had a few, we walked around a bit seeing how there were people everywhere, shops of all sorts were still open, clubs were starting to get going and club promoters were out front trying to get people to come in for cheap drinks. It should be noted this was a random Wednesday and the area was alive and kicking with tons of people - realizing that being out at night is something this city does really well.

Even at this hour, the line was long to go up in the tower so we decided to not get the view.

They had this huge falafel frying dish out front with ready to cook falafel lining it. Was thinking of ordering an order to go just to see the process.

Steph posing with her beer in the bar, Camp.

Monument at Taksim (yep we finally made it).

Building of another mosque right next to taksim square.

Was getting to be 11 and we needed to get to Taksim to make sure we can get on the public transit back to the hostel so we head the rest of the way to Taksim and find the transit spot where we could take the funicular down the hill to the final train station of the rail line that goes by our hostel. Make it in time to get the rail and look at the neighborhood the train goes through at night as we head back into the old city. Get there and the old town is dead (weird after seeing the hordes of people from where we just were). We walk by the hagia and blue mosque (not a bad way to end a day of traveling seeing those beautiful buildings on a serene, crisp night) and eventually get back to the hostel to turn in for the night.