Day One in Istanbul

Had to take this just to prove we were in Turkey

From our rooftop cafe

Thought this was funny, ended up humming the song all day!

This is how all the street look where we stayed.

Some old pillar 

These buildings are right on the main drag

Here is one of the newer building in the neighborhood

First part of rainbow is rain!  The downpour started right after we took this picture

The Blue Mosque

When I found out that I had a couple days off for Eid, I called Gail and told her we needed to get out of town.  The question is where?  There are so many interesting places within a four hour flight!  After narrowing it down to Cairo or Istanbul, we went with the later.  A very good call!

We started our trip early on Thursday, Nov. 3rd.  Out to the Abu Dhabi airport where we learned that everyone else was leaving town as well!  Line, line, long line, line not moving, to a line to get on a bus to take us to the plane!  Nice four hour flight to Turkey, and then you guessed it, Visa line, passport line, incoming security line, grab the luggage and found our ride.

The ride in from the airport takes about 30 minutes, and we were able to enjoy some of the sights.  It's so different from anywhere we have been.  The last few miles winds along the Marmara Sea.

The Sea of Marmara /ˈmɑrmərə/ (Greek: Θάλασσα του Μαρμαρά, Turkish: Marmara Denizi), also known as the Sea of Marmora or theMarmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis (Greek: Προποντίς), is the inland sea that connects the Black Seato the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black Sea and theDardanelles strait to the Aegean. The former also separates Istanbul into its Asian and European sides. The Sea has an area of 11,350 km² (280 km x 80 km)^[1] with the greatest depth reaching 1,370 m.

Before we knew what happened, the van pulled off the 2 lane road and we were on a little one laner.  We were blown away at first, but it turns out all the roads around the area we stayed are like that.

We stayed at a cute little boutique hotel that only has 28 rooms.  After unpacking we ran up to the rooftop cafe to check out the view.  Amazing!  Next we hit the pavement.  We headed up to the main drag and found a cool little swarma place to eat.  The ground floor wasn't much bigger than a closet, but it had three levels above it.  We sat above the plaza and took in the sights.

We weren't in full sightseeing mode yet, so we walked for quite a while, then got stuck in a downpour.  One of the things we really wanted to do was to give a Turkish Bath (Hamam) a try.

In Western Europe, the 'Turkish bath' as a method of cleansing and relaxation became popular during the Victorian era. The process involved in taking a Turkish bath is similar to that of a sauna, but is more closely related to ancient Greek and ancient Roman bathing practices.

A person taking a Turkish bath first relaxes in a room (known as the warm room) that is heated by a continuous flow of hot, dry air allowing the bather to perspire freely. Bathers may then move to an even hotter room (known as the hot room) before splashing themselves with cold water. After performing a full body wash and receiving a massage, bathers finally retire to the cooling-room for a period of relaxation.

I'm game.  We paid our fee and went our separate ways.  Men and women don't share facilities.

Mark experience:

I got put in a room to change and was given a thin towel to wrap up.  Then down to the warm room where I met my, wait for it, BATHER.  He didn't speak much english, just pushed me around the big warm stone like a wet fish.  He scrubbed me down, dumped warm water over my head then pointed me toward the massage room, where a very strong dude gave me an oil massage.  After that, my personal bather pushed me back into the warm room for a second round of scrubbing.  With the oil I felt even more like a wet fish on the stone.  I got out of there as clean as I have ever been, and while it was a tad uncomfortable, due in part to the language barrier, it wasn't entirely horrible.  After the baths we were ready to head back to the hotel for a night cap and a good nights sleep.

Gail's experience:


When in Rome............
Given Black granny panties and a towel, off I go. I really had no idea where to go or what I was suppose to do, I must have looked lost for I was finally led to the hot, marble room. What a amazing room, over 300 years old, circular with a 3 story dome ceiling, in the center was the hot marble stone. So basically find yourself a spot on the stone, lay on your towel relax, sweat, enjoy the steam and hot marble. So there are about 6-8 women Turkish bathers, and most are very large topless women with small bikini bottoms. My turn....my lady speaks no english and basically bumped or swatted me to sit up, turn over, move all the while giving me quite the rough scrub down and hairwash. I'm pretty sure I got my breast exams taken care of twice! All squeaky clean and on to the cool down pool to close your pores. Time for the hot oil massage, again no english and again another breast exam. The whole experience was truly for me a once in a lifetime.