Istanbul - Hagia Sophia, Sultanahmet, Basilica Cistern

We spent the next two days in Istanbul, where we finally met up with our awesome travel buddies Ashley & Steven.

Our hostel had a nice rooftop deck where we had breakfast in the mornings, we wandered the city and enjoyed some parks.

Bosporus River, Istanbul Old Town & Sea of Marmara from the rooftop

Park in Topkapi Palace

Mmm Turkish breakfast in the sun

Sitting in old town watching the fishermen, with a view toward new town

Finally reunited w/ A&S

Hagia Sophia (Aya Sophya in Turkish) was built in 360 AD and was a church for 1000 years before it was turned into a mosque and now a museum. It was the largest enclosed space in the world for many years. Though definitely showing its age inside, it was a beautiful building and striking in its balance and simplicity from the outside. (Oh, and it was dark inside and a $3000 lens has not arrived under my christmas tree yet, so the inside pictures aren't so great. google it. )

Sultanahmet Mosque (or Blue Mosque) was built in 1616 and was supposedly Islams answer to Aya Sofya. It is much more intricate than Aya Sofya and more impressive inside, but also more than 1000 years newer. Sultahmet is still a functioning mosque so you have to visit around the prayer times that are held throughout the day.

While working around prayer times at Sultanahmet, we paid a visit to the Basilica Cistern. It was built in the 6th century and can hold up to 100,000 tons of water - it was used to provide water to a number of palaces in the area and also for the whole city in cases of siege. Oh and it featured in the James Bond movie from Russia with Love. Cool history and just a fascinating setting.

That's the (short) historical tour of Istanbul. We spent another two days there at the end of the trip, so more to come.

Next up: Cappadocia - fairy chimneys and ancient frescoes.

NYC & London - taking the long way to Turkey

All of our international plane tickets are financed by frequent flyer miles - which means free tickets and some very odd itineraries. Our journey to Turkey involved a 7 hour stop in NY (JFK airport) and 22 hours in London (LHR). While I actually kind of enjoy flying, I do not enjoy airports (security, delays, expensive food, uncomfortable chairs, and incessant lines). So we decided to make the most of both layovers.

I'm a mean wife and made Matt fly on his birthday (really it was just a function of when Ashley had a break from school) so Saturday when we got into the city around 4pm with three hours before we needed to head back to the airport we decided to splurge on a nice birthday dinner at Breslin in the Ace Hotel (it was near the train station) and then pop up to Times Square.

New York was where we got engaged 4 years ago, so it was fun to be back for the first time.

We somehow managed to get upgraded to British Airways' version of Economy Plus and so arrived semi-rested in London at 10 on Sunday morning. We strapped on our walking shoes, picked up a map and with some excellent pointers from our friend Tom decided to meander the city and go where the wind took us. The 'core' sites are actually not very spread out and we managed to hit Trafalgar Square, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Mall, London Eye, Tower Bridge and more all at a leisurely pace. Despite what you always hear about English food (and my vague memories of another 24 layover 8 years ago) we found some excellent fish and chips for dinner and also enjoyed a great brew at a back alley pub (seriously back alley Tom!). We enjoyed getting to see the sights and get a taste of London - but also don't rank it as one of the top places we'd like to go back to.

We needed to be at the airport at 4 the next morning for our 6am flight and rather than leaving some overpriced hotel at 3 in the morning to get there we decided to sleep at the airport. You would think with LHR being the 4th busiest airport in the world they would be open at all hours and one could at least find a nice carpeted corner or row of chairs to curl up in. We arrived just before midnight to find out that we were stuck out in the cold - literally on marble tiles for the night. Stay tuned for our stop in LHR on the way home for a major 'ok, we are grown ups now' moment - saying no to the tiles. :)

Next up: Istanbul, Turkey

Last meal in Turkey

Bosphorus in the foreground, Hagia Sophia in the background.

We'll be back in Seattle Monday evening.

Turquoise Coast

We've had a wonderful 3 days at George House on the Mediterranean. Two more days on the coast and then back to Istanbul.

Cappadocia