Other than this we ate a lot of Tavuk  Döner / Yarum Tavuk , also known as a chicken sandwich.

The one unmissable site in Istanbul is the Hagia Sophia.

It was built as a Catholic church 1500 years ago, burned down several times, then got rebuilt, had minarets added, the mosaics got plastered over.

Today it is a museum and church, it is still very beautiful and, of course, monumental.

We also visited the Basilica Cistern.

We could walk under the city in massive columned halls, underneath us fish swam.  In the past this was the city’s largest reservoir and they had huge water pipes through which they brought the water in.

We also saw the Taksim quarter by the Galata tower.

And there was a CS party!

The Grand Bazaar.

Once I have been here for the 4th race of a 5-day orienteering event.   Then it was empty because it was held in the night, every shopper was gone and every shop had packed up all its wares. Well, during the day it was rather different, sometimes fewer, sometimes more people throngred in its covered streets.

We met an old man in the Yeni Mosque.

We chatted a lot with him and he told us a lot about islam.

When we were saying good bye to him, he told me how lucky I am to have a wife like Zita and that I should look after her like a jewel, mustn’t break her (mustn’t break her heart), because once its broken, while you can pick the pieces up and put them together, it will never be the same again.

Tomorrow we’ll say good bye to Europe.

Europe was great, the balkan people are amazingly friendly and hospitable, the Turks until now, until Istanbul were even more so.

We would like to say thanks to every Couchsurfer whom we met in Istanbul, especially to  Kivanc and Ali, who gave us their time and place in their life and home, thus creating a home for us in this enormous metropolis.

We said good bye to Dani, our faithful companion, whom we would like to thank for accompanying us this far!