laviealexandras: Istanbul

As sun was hidden beyond the clouds , it was the sound of car alarm and street rush which awakened us on the second day in Istanbul. Our plan for the day was get to the Sultanahmed and catch The Big Bus tour to apply our voucher from travel agency.

Istanbul daily

hard life of shop business

The traffic in Istanbul is very interesting, people are crossing the streets and don´t care if the cars are aproaching or no. Crosswalk don´t have such a special meaning like in other countries. Traffic lights I think is more symbolic then usefull, sometimes they follow them, sometimes no. Blinker: very unusual, honking car: very common (everytime).People just walk everywhere, cars ride everywhere , everyone is doing what they like so it looks like a system without some traffic rules. So we learned one think, when others are going, we can go also!

photo from our tour bus

City transport has a big tangle of tube,trams, buses, ferries and marmaray (rail under the sea).All you need is buy Istanbulkart for 7 TL (cca 2 euros) and just charging it what price you want. This card can be used by more people. With a tube it takes us just three stops to be in Sultanahmed - main square with The Blue mosque and The Hagia Sofia. We have a look at this beatifull architechture masterpiece but decided to go inside other day( until we buy Museumkart ),The Blue Mosque was closed due to prays anyway.

The Blue Mosque

We found a Big Bus tour just in front of the square and use our voucher ( the real price was 35 euro). The Istanbul is so big that if you want to see at least the most important piece of it you have to take a tour. I really recommend it. We saw so much that we shouldn´t have chance to see it just with the city traffic. We saw the right taste of Istanbul : from the station where Orient express ends and Jane Austen was inspired to write her novel to the rich palaces and poor districts. The most exiting moment was passing the bridge between Europe an Asia. Now I can say: I was in Asia!

approaching the bridge between Europe and Asia ( from Europe side)

still on the Europian side

The big advantage of tour was that we can get off on the main stops, stay there some time and then took another big bus tour because they riding every hour. We choose the Spice Bazaar ( Egyptian Market/Misir Carsisi). You don´t see it in TOP must see places like the Grand Bazaar we visited later but this one was much better to see for us.

entering the Spice Bazaar

The smell of fish, kari, fresh meet, cheese, sweets, cinnamon, nuts mixed with some other unrecognized flavours hit me to my nose.

the colours of the Spice Bazaar

tea time

The right turkish atmosphere lured me to have a famous turkish coffee. When my answer for the waitresses question if I want sugar to my coffee was NO please I know I do something wrong. In that momment he looks like I ruined his life, like I break some unwritten rules in Turkey and said something horrible. Maybe the right turkish coffee must be with sugar. Next time, I will know. The coffee was too strong , too many grains fro me. But the smell! The best smell of coffee, so strong you can feel the kofein in your body even though you don´t drink it yet. Not comparable with a coffee package you can buy for 3,50 in sale. What taste me more was a tea. Between the marketers, it is common to sharing tea. One of them is offering to others cups of tea on a special tray and with this tray going ,,from doors to doors,, Tea is in a special cute glass cup.

On the Spice Bazaar you can find everything. From food to buttons - you will be amazed by the amount of offer and by the effort of marketers trying to sell you something. But there is advantage on it- you can negotiate. I brought one lace, one phone case, two bracelets, one cinnamon package, one bag, one ring, two earings, one necklace and five diffrent seasonings from the Spice Bazaar - everyting for a very good price!like the marketers told me.:D