Takin' A Magic Carpet Ride

1/12/13

Wrapping up Istanbul...

Of these four places, I would have to say that Dolmabahçe Palace and the Topkapi Palace were my favorites. The mosques were beautiful and impressive...but well, I like the glitz of the palaces. We weren't allowed to take any photos inside Dolmabahçe. They have a 4 ton chandelier in one of the rooms...it was incredible. The palace is amazing too...totally decorated and preserved. Although, we had to stand in line for almost an hour and a half to get in. The Turkish holiday didn't help matters any.

The blue tiles throughout the Topkapi place are amazing...such bright colors after all these years.

All in all, it was a really wonderful trip. The girls were treated like rock stars...every where we went men and women fawned over them. Something about little blonde headed beauties. It really was incredible. I thought the Saudi's were bad, but in Istanbul, my girls were treated like real princess'. Pretty cool. We loved spending time with my hubby's parents...and we miss them very much. Istanbul was a very interesting place...I'm not sure if I'd make a second visit, but I'm really glad I went and got to see such amazing buildings and places.

Topkapi Palace- The Harem section

Topkapi Palace

Hagia Sophia

Topkapi Palace

Photos of Blue Mosque

Dolmabahçe Palace

Topkapi Palace

1/10/13

Okay, I am so far behind its not even funny. We just got back from two weeks in Hungry and I haven't even posted about our trip to Istanbul back in October! Sigh...full time job and blogging are not mixing well.
Anyway...I want to make sure I document all that we are doing while on this crazy ride, so I don't want to skimp on anything.
This first post (of 2) is just going to talk a bit about our trip and show photos from all around Istanbul. The second post will have photos of the mosques, palaces, etc.

So we arrived late to Istanbul and the hubby's parents were waiting anxiously for us. Grabbed our bags, found our driver and off we went. Found that the apartment is up a super steep hill with 5 flights of stairs. Oh yeah, my mother-in-law loved me for that one!
Got settled and headed out for a nice dinner near the Galata Tower.

Over the next 9 days, we hit up every major tourist site in Istanbul. Mosques, palaces, Spice and Grand Bazzars...we hit the ground running each day. Did some serious walking, managed to use the public transit and just had an all around great time.

At one point we took a boat out to the Prince's Islands and took a horse drawn carriage ride...which was really fun and it's a beautiful place. I imagine in the spring its just gorgeous. Reminded me a little of New Orleans.

We happened to be in town when they were celebrating their independence day and so there was a great spirit in everyone, fireworks, and flags everywhere!

The Cisterns were a favorite of everyone...there was just something cool and spooky about the undergrand water hole. Loved the lighting...

We ate good food, had some nice wine...I even tried the local drink Raki...which was beyond disgusting...oh my. We did find a great sushi restaurant! (hey when you live in Saudi you get pretty excited about those things!) :)

The city is huge, with both the European side and the Asian side...and there is such a mix of good parts and bad.

So, below are some shots from around Istanbul.