We are actually a little sad to be leaving Istanbul - 4 days had seemed like plenty of time but in fact it's just enough time to get oriented and reset your body clock to local time. Then you feel like you can really start exploring. Still it was a good introduction to a truly ancient and fabled city and it leaves you wanting more.
I loved the area we stayed in, one of the smaller sidestreets in Sultanahmet. Close enough to everything that places were easy to get to, but just off the centre so that it was very quiet. Loved being able to have breakfast on a roof between two great monuments and overlooking the Marmara Sea, and thrilling to know that the entire slope was Justinian's palace grounds, running down to the sea walls.
Now we're heading south, leaving the relatively temperate city to the Aegean coast. It's going to start getting hot.
I did not notice this till Tim pointed it out but the steward spoke to him in English and attempted to speak to me in Turkish. The people here are extremely diverse in appearance - some look typically middle eastern, some oriental, some caucasian, and of course any conceivable blend between. Our guide the first day had an unexpected resemblance to Tim's dad, himself a dark Ukrainian about whom it was often joked had a bit of a Turkish look to him. But there is such a great diversity of appearance, that even without the ruins and archeological evidence of many conquering races, that evidence would remain in the faces of its population.
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