Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The Bosphorous Tour

The Bosphorous or the Istanbul Strait is a channel of water separating Europe from Asia. We took "The Bosphorous Tour" where a bus came to our hotel to pick us up.



Our all-day tour included:
The Spice Bazaar



The Golden Horn which is a historic inlet or estuary which is the point where the Bosphorous enters the Sea of Marmara.



A boat tour on the Boshphorus strait




 We saw a lot of historic buildings both on the European side and the Asian side of Istanbul. The buildings are very well maintained and some of them have been converted to offices and universities.



Had a Turkish family with very cute children on our tour.



We stopped for a delicious Turkish lunch in between. They had great vegetarian food, desserts and coffee. We then drove on the Bosphorus Bridge from European Istanbul to Asian Istanbul.



The tour took us to the Beylerbeyi Palace (the summer residence of the Ottoman Sultans withe the original furniture, and wonderful gardens) on the Asian side.




The Camlica Hill (the highest point in Istanbul from where you can get a panoramic view of the city and the Bosphorus) - we couldn't get any good pictures here since it started raining really heavily.

The shopping included a fashion show at a leather coat shop.


 Even though it was a rainy and cold day, the trip was well worth it since we were able to get an overview of Istanbul in the short time we had there. Our guide was a humorous chap, spoke good English and made it all quite entertaining.

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