Istanbul - Day 2.

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

walk near the Spice Bazaar

the pigeon man

cats everywhere

delicious sweet yummy we don´t remember it´s name ( it tastes similiar to baklava with pistachios powder)

happy to have delicious kebab!

Istanbul - Day 1

After spending hours by searching tours, flights and all this stuff- here it came - the verdict. Istanbul. Counting out the days to our flight gave me a plenty of time to prepare properly. And I do, because I am obssesd with travelling - I must know everything.The must see places, the must taste food , the must do experience and all this stuff What you didn´t know about Istanbul. So after downloaded 4 apps about Istanbul, borrowing 6 books from library and few hours searching how to get from aiport to the city, we were ready. 


If you start planning your journey from Sabiha Gocken aiport to city centre, you will be exactly where we were - as much confused as it possible. There are so many choices, especially when you download the trafic map but you don't know which one choose. Every one of this is complicated with 2 or 3 transfers and tooks about 2 hours ( because you never know how the traffic will be ). And there is the small thing - in the traffic map there are (for some unkown reason ) the lines which doesn´t exist yet. It took me 5 diffrent downloaded maps to find out one, where over not existing line were little numbers 2018 that gives me the signal I can't go by the line which not exist. But..

Budapest aiport

Happines found us right in the plane. Slovakians? asked the man next to us. Yes!! sound our answer in the Budapestian plane. Hi, I am The Turk and Slovak also. How big is the chance to meet Turkish guy who live in your country for 9 years and even speak your native language? He also have the friend living in our small hometown with 25 000 habitants! Oguz was really nice to us. He found where to buy Istanbulkart( something like Oyster card in London) and we shared journey to European side of Istanbul. By travelling in a bus on Asian side of Istanbul we were talking with Oguz about Istanbul, tips, about how he like Slovakia...And do you like slovakian cuisine? his answer How cuisine? gave us know how is incomparable 15 millions Istanbul in 70 millions Turkey with our small 5 millions Slovakia. The journey took us 2 hours - and it was the fastest (except taxi) and cheapest. - how Oguz said. From aiport we took E100 bus to Kadikoy and from there we catch a ferry from to Eminonu. That´s why I think it was also the nicest way how to sail on the Bosphorus between Europe and Asia. Smell of the sea , wind with fish taste and seagulls singing gave us the right atmosphere of welcoming the Istanbul! 

Bosphorus

After accomodated in out hotel we decide to take a discover walk around our area.( just 3 metro stops to Sultanahmed-city center ). Huge shops with even bigger window cases attracted us. As soon as the  shop owners saw we have slovakian features they started to speak russian. We notice that also some headlines were written in russian. Realize, we are probably in some russian district. Later, was the right  time for our first turkish dinner ! We were suprisingly suprised : 

In the end of the day -  tiredness and excitement were the strongest feeling we had . Quickly go sleep and see what tommorrow bring !