Destination: Istanbul, Turkey

We had barely gotten our suitcases emptied and clean laundry folded from our trip to Paris before we were packing up again for another European destination.  Geoff had a super long Easter holiday weekend from work and Olivia was in the midst of a four week break from school so we couldn't pass up the opportunity for another travel adventure.  This time it was off to Istanbul, Turkey.  

View near our hotel

Our first big tourist activity of the trip was a visit to the Grand Bazaar, which is one of largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with over 3,000 shops.  It was huge and so easy to get lost in.  Tons of shops selling rugs, pottery, food, clothing, jewelry, junk...you name it!  Oh, and if you were looking for knock-off designer goods, this was the place for you!  We saw tons of fake Nikes and wannabe designer handbags.  

Need a new belly dancing outfit?  No problem!!

From the Grand Bazaar, we headed further into the area of Istanbul called the Old City.  This area contains most of the city's historical sites, including the famous Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia (super old Greek orthodox church turned mosque turned museum) which sit next to each other.  

The Blue Mosque, even though it's not really blue

The Blue Mosque is open to the public at certain times for viewing.  Unfortunately, around the time we were there and wanted to go in, Olivia was on the brink of meltdown mode so we figured it would be wise to not go in at that moment. One thing that was different being in this part of the world was the ongoing islamic calls to prayer heard around the city multiple times throughout the day.  At certain times of the day, speakers affixed to all the mosques would blare out a man chatting (saying the prayers I presume).  You could hear the prayers echoing all over the city.  Anyways, after leaving the Blue Mosque, we wandered over to Hagia Sophia and the vicinity around it. 

Hagia Sophia

Vendors like this guy and his cart were everywhere.  However, we don't know what they were cooking/selling.  They look like maybe some kind of large grilled nut and the smell permeating from them stinks.  We also saw them in Lisbon and at all the Christmas markets in Germany, Austria and Prague that we went to.  If you know what they are, let me know!

We stumbled onto the most beautiful park on the back side of the Hagia Sophia.  The blooms, primarily  various shades of tulips, were amazing.  Honestly, I think this might have been my favorite part of the trip.  It was so peaceful and pretty.

These bluebonnets made me a bit nostalgic from Texas spring

Ashton was a fan of Turkish flat bread

The next day, we made another trip back to the Old City.  This time Olivia was in a better mood so we went to the Blue Mosque, which dates back to the 1600's.  As it is still active, in order for us to enter, we had to remove our shoes and all women had to have their heads covered. (Scarves were provided if you didn't have your own.)  Children weren't required to remove their shoes, but of course, Olivia insisted on doing so.  

In the courtyard

It's hard to get depth perception from this photo, but the top of the dome is waaaayyy up there

After touring the mosque, we intended to tour the museum at the Hagia Sophia.  However, the queue (that's British language for line) to purchase tickets was so long that we decided to bypass it and try again the following day.  So instead we headed to the Spice Bazaar.  It was similar to the Grand Bazaar but much, much smaller and primarily limited to shops with food.

At the Spice Bazaar entrance

Sampling the Turkish coffee

After leaving the Spice Bazaar, our next stop was a playground back at the tulip park.  Who cares about old mosques and spices...finally the girls had something to get excited about!  

Geoff getting into the action

After our visit to the park, we boarded a boat tour for a cruise around the Bosporus Strait.  The cruise was a couple hours long and took us around the water that the city sits on.  It was a fun (and eventually cold) way to see the city from a different vantage point.

The most spectacular sunset!  It looked like the sky was on fire

On our final day there, Easter Sunday, we once again returned to the Old City with the determination to  get into the Hagia Sophia.  We tried to get there a little bit earlier in the day in hopes that the ticket queue wouldn't be so long.  No matter...it was still long and we were going to have to suck it up.  However, once we were in line, we were informed that people with little kids could go to the front of the line!  Awesome.  Wished we would have known that the day before when we passed it up.  Oh well.  

The inside was quite impressive.  Original construction of the Hagia Sophia began in the 500s and it was the largest cathedral in the world for over a thousand years. 

Back once again for more pictures in front of our favorite fountain 

Celebrating Easter touring and taking pictures of mosques! Ha.  He is Risen!

After our enjoying Easter brunch back at our hotel, we hopped on a ferry for Asia.  Istanbul is an transcontinental city with one portion of it being in Europe and the other in Asia, divided by the Bosphorus Strait.  

The Asia side isn't very touristy and our primary purpose for going was so that we can now say we've been to the continent of Asia.  We explored the streets for awhile looking around.  The narrow streets were full of various shops/markets and shoppers. 

While we might have been the tourists in Istanbul, it seemed like our girls were the main attraction everywhere we went there. We've been to various countries (primarily Mexico and Portugal) in the past where they got a lot of attention from locals, but it seemed like it was limited to people we were in close contact with, like waiters in restaurants or people we might be standing next to in a line.  But in Istanbul, random people (strangely about 2/3 of them men) just walking down the street or sitting outside at a restaurant we walked by, would come up to them and smile, say something and frequently touch them on the head, arm or face.  Everywhere heads would turn to look at them.  We even had multiple people ask to take pictures of one or both of the girls and sometimes the people wanted to be in the photo with them.  Kinda weird.  I'm not sure if it's just the Turkish culture, the girls' fair skin/hair and blue eyes which stand out more in that region of the world or perhaps a combination of both, but it was quite interesting.  And for someone that has a big issue with strangers touching my children, no matter how harmless the intent, this was definitely out of my comfort zone.  However, that's one of the things I enjoy about traveling to different countries is that it most certainly gets you out of what's comfortable and what you consider acceptable and provides a whole new perspective to life as we know it.  

So what's next on the Streit family travels horizon? After a month at home to enjoy the London spring, next stop: Greece!