Istanbul, Turkey

Day 39 - Istanbul, Turkey

From the Navigator - In the morning, Dawn Princess will cross the Marmara Sea before approaching the Bosporus Strait that Istanbul is situated on. Upon making our final approaches, we will embark our local pilot at the Istanbul Gelibulu Pilot Station to the south of the port, who will guide us for the remaining distance to our berth.

Istanbul is a unique city, situated on the edge of two continents with part of the city in Europe and part in Asia. The population in Istanbul is 16,000,000 and for all of Turkey it is 76,805,524. Turkey has a thriving economy. Turkey is not part of the European Union. Their currency is the Turkish Lira. Last November Randy and took a 2 two week land tour in Turkey and we spent 3 days in Istanbul, we saw the major tourist sites then. We saw St. Sophia, Topkapi Palace Museum with the Harem, Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar, Hippodrome, Byzantine cistern among other sites. We decided to have an easy day in town. Well it was a fascinating if not easy day. We took the Follicular up and we ended up on Taksim Square and shopped were all the locals shop. Randy got a haircut, I got a pedicure and then we shopped a long a 1 ½ mile street that was closed to cars. It was downhill and crowded with the local people. The main street was shops and the side streets were full of sidewalk cafés. I am going to post some pictures from our trip in November so you can see the points of interest and then I will post a few from this trip. Tomorrow is Anzac Cove scenic cruising and then the next day is Athens.