There must be at least 50 restaurants and cafes within a five minute walk of our flat, and competition for customers is fierce. Simply walking down the street becomes a succession of invitations to come in, for beer, for wine, for the best food, or why not simply a cup of tea.
And similarly with shops. Rug merchants were particularly resourceful, ranging far and wide to direct people to there stores. But we already have eleven rugs and more on the walls.... I do not want to sell, just show you the beauty of my wares. And we would look, sometimes, and the rugs certainly were beautiful, but we don't need more
Shopping for a shawl
We nearly bought these tiles
The Grand Bazaar, I had expected this to be a more extreme version of the nearby shops and a complete assault on the senses. It is surprisingly calm and civilised. The scale is immense, you could lose yourself in here for days, there must be thousands of shops, all somehow making a living. And out of all of our trips I think we have bought more here in Istanbul than anywhere else, so the system is clearly working
The old Spice Bazaar, storekeeper waiting to engage with the passing crowds
A nice way to see the city is a boat trip along the Bosphorus, lined with many palaces,
mosques
and timed right for a great sunset over the city
Cats are everywhere here, some thin and scrawny, but most are looking healthy - a lot of feeding of these feral cats goes on, but seemingly little attempt to control their population and reproduction
Seagulls also abound. There is a nest on a rooftop near our flat, and we watch the parents feeding their chicks and encouraging them to fight for food: to behave more like seagulls. One chick was almost carried off by another gull, the competition for food is quite ruthless, and we are relieved each day to still see two chicks still present. They flap their wings and hop hopefully into the air, but we don't get to see them taking their first flight
After Greece we are somewhat overdosed on archaeology and history. So while there look to be really interesting museums devoted to these subjects we have avoided them. But Istanbul goes back a long long way, and to remedy our lack of historical exploration I propose a trip to walk along the city walls
Some sections have crumbled away, due to earthquake, time, and neglect
But other sections are incredibly well preserved or restored
Although the ditch in front of the first wall has been filled in and used as a long linear market garden, enough remains to let you imagine the sight that faced the many invading armies that crashed into these defences. If you breach the first wall there is a higher wall behind, and after that a 30 to 40 foot wall with countless towers to face.
After a couple of miles in the heat we find a shady bench in a park and have a small picnic, eating the tin of stuffed vine leaves that we have been carrying around since the famine that we experienced at the Topkapi Palace several days ago
And so we come towards the end of our journey. We enjoy a drink in a rooftop restaurant and reflect on the trip. It feels that we have been away from home for far longer than two weeks. Tomorrow we will be back in Manchester, where we are promised rain and what sounds like a very cold 16 degree temperature
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