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| From our hotel dining room the Blue Mosque seems to be getting a spruce up. |
My memories of Istanbul have always been heavily tinged with romance, of a time of freedom, of wandering and experiencing otherness. The 80s were a time of discovery and Istanbul seemed like the most exotic place to be - with Greece running neck-and-neck!
Returning here has been wonderful. Of course it is much changed, more touristy and westernised which is a little sad but it is still wonderful, the people still the same albeit perhaps a little more jaded in the old city. But friendly as always - and always ready to sell you something, to offer you apple tea.
More of Istanbul later. For now it has been a trip down memory lane with the coffee, the raki, the fresh pretzels, bread and bbq-ed sweet corn on every corner, apple tea and carpets, the mighty Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. The little boats selling fresh-caught fish cooked on a tiny brazier in the boat ? - replaced by large boats, selling the same thing but en mass. The beautiful light glimmering and vast Blue Mosque now dark and shrouded in scaffold as it gets a facelift. The wharf once a space to wander now a teeming mass of sightseers and boats. But still it is wonderful to be here again!
After a coffee with the man who collected us from the airport, we dumped our bags and went for a wander so I could begin to show Lindsay this magical ancient city, city of the Ghost Empire.
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| A room with a view - Saint Sophia |
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| The entrance to a caravanserai at the end of one of the Silk Roads |
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| Close to where the kids and I stayed in 1984 |
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| Delicious BBQ-ed sweet corn now sold from fancier carts but still delicious |
Back in the 1984 as well as we bought fresh fish cooked on the boat by the fishermen. Absolutely yummy. Obviously the fresh fish is still popularbut those fishing boats of old have been replaced with large more glamorous affairs.
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| The fish is now cooked on fancier gondolas and people can sit outside to eat |
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| Photo circa 1984 as we lined up to buy our fish rolls |
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| A refreshment break |
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| Breakfast the next morning |
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