18 October

After rising as usual, having breakfast and then departing the hotel by 0830, I was down bright and early for the City Sightseeing Istanbul Hop on - Hop off tour – but unfortunately too early, as they don’t start until 1000. Having been foiled there I went to the Archaeological Museum – perhaps the cheapest and best value so far, at YTL10 and I spent over three and a half hours looking at the exhibits (and could have spent a lot longer, but decided I was becoming a museum junkie and I should try to break the habit before I find the craving overtakes me completely).
The exhibits are arranged in historical order, from pre-history through to Nineteenth Century. Indispersed are exhibits from Troy and other particular places, plus the museum has a small childrens’ centre, where there is a Trojan Horse small ones can climb into.
I finally had to drag myself away and finally made it up to the City Sightseeing Istanbul Hop on - Hop off tour by just before 1300 and caught that tour, sitting up the front (but this time having a full windscreen in front of me so I wouldn’t get clobbered by a branch again – this is the SAME COMPANY which runs the Paris tour I went on!).
The tour covers seventy-three places, which I was going to list, but I think now I’ll wait until I get home and just put the brochure through the scanner (as the destinations aren’t on their web site yet). However, some interesting parts: the hop on - hop off stops are just on the side of the street, so you’d better be there on time because they can only stop for a short time; this didn’t stop the driver and guide from stopping on a bridge and ordering a cup of tea from a street-side vendor and then waiting for it to be made and passed in; the driver managed to stop on a roundabout exit and then back into a stopping place, backwards through all the traffic; at some points, taxis in front of us disappeared from our sigh completely and the other front-seat passengers and myself couldn’t see them even when leaning completely forward.
After I got off from that I had another late lunch (I don’t know how I will adapt next week when it is set meal times) and walked back to the hotel to divest myself of tickets and brochures (otherwise I tend to bend or drop them) and then headed off to the Galata Tower, which I had seen from the bus and took my fancy.
That was a surprisingly short walk, and part of that was through a subway where I saw two interesting shops; one was selling chain saws (obviously impulse buys by people walking pass – “I’ll buy a chain saw, because I never know when I’ll need one and it will come in handy anyway”) and the other was selling remote controls – all appeared new and were packaged, and the range was HUGE!
I walked up to the tower and was fortunate enough to go straight in – at YTL10 yet again – and almost straight up seven floors in the lift, so I only had to walk up three floors. It was quite crowded around the parapet, but the views were very good. If you look at the photos from there, you will see distant ones appear hazy – pollution!
I walked back through small streets and alleys. I saw an interesting way of enforcing one-way traffic (the spikes) and ran across a Turkish Romeo and Juliet – who were kind enough to pose for me, even though they didn’t understand English.
The bridge was filled with fishermen (no women that I could see) and some had good catches, but the fish were only about ten centimetres long. A fillet would perhaps provide a small hors d’ouvres. I was tempted to buy a cob of corn (a lot are sold on the street and smell very nice) but resisted and only got a can of Coke Zero from the “hole in the wall” shop on the street just before the hotel (and at YTL1,25, it’s the cheapest in Istanbul).
Back in the hotel I started to process the photos – good job I numbered from the thousands to start with as I still have another day here myself and then a day and a half with the tour. I didn’t finish that until 1915 and then rushed down to the lobby to get Internet access and check my mail, send out my mail and start uploading the photos. While that was happening I had enough time to write this blog and post it. I still have to do my washing, so have to do some of that tonight and some tomorrow night (shirts dry quickest – singlets dry slowest). At 2000, it looks like I won’t be back at my room until after 2100 at the earliest. The trials of trying to record so much!
As a matter of interest, I have been picked as a writer by a number of people I’ve spoken too. I’m not sure what it is, but I’ll have to find out why.