Istanbul alone.
Arrived 2 hours late. Nevertheless, the transfer ordered from the hotel did not fail. We were met by a man with a sign, planted a bus.
We settled in the hotel, rested for an hour - it just got dark. Went to explore. At the first corner from the hotel, they opened their mouths - where to go? Immediately, a very friendly Turk in perfect English explained everything. We crossed the railway over the bridge, went where the tourists go, and now - our hotel is really 5 minutes from the Blue Mosque! There is also a tourist market, streets with cafes and restaurants - we are in the center of Istanbul!
The way back turned out to be more difficult - we wandered for an hour and a half along the crooked streets ((((.
We took a taxi to the Grand Bazaar, and it turned out to be closed - Sunday. We went on foot towards Sultanahmet along the tram line, looked at the mosques and the column of Constantine. We gradually approached the Hippodrome. Evening has arrived. . .
Hike to the old Sultan's Topkapi Palace. Everything immediately went wrong... And the palace itself did not make an impression. There are crowds of people everywhere. . . The notorious oriental luxury apparently consisted in carpets and all sorts of decorations hanging on these carpets. When all this was removed, then... Part of the luxury in the form of golden thrones and piles of large, but uncut precious stones, looked in the Treasury. But here, too, there is a catch - the weak illumination of the exhibits.
We started with Hagia Sophia. An amazing sight. Everyone enjoyed it very much and no one got tired. We took the audio guide. My son especially liked it - go by points, in order of numbers - like "Zarnitsa" once. Instead of the planned couple of hours, we spent more than 4 hours here.
Then we went to Galata along the tram line. We thought at the end to climb the Galata Tower. While we were looking at everything, we had lunch, went to a couple of shops - it was already dusk. We decided not to climb the tower. Just go for a walk through the narrow streets. We saw a picturesque staircase - we decided to go up. In the end, the ascent led us to... the same Galata tower!... Of course, we perched on the observation deck! In the darkness that had already fallen, the view was amazing.
The Basilica Cistern is a Byzantine underground reservoir. Very good. Small but very colorful object. Darkness, quiet solemn music, lucky lighting, rows of columns, vaulted ceilings, and fish, a real fish in the water!
Aquarium. Fine. We left almost at closing. I was in the Singapore Aquarium... Istanbul seemed to me more spacious and larger.
We started with an easy walk through the Gulhane Park (just a small and well-groomed park) and smoothly moved on to the Archaeological Museum. I myself love history, but I did not expect my family to like it so much! The collection of sarcophagi is simply amazing (very beautiful bas-reliefs in excellent condition are amazing). In addition, there are still a lot of interesting things - beautiful and well preserved. In general, we were politely escorted out of the museum due to the closure.
Hike to the New Sultan's Dolmabahce Palace. Nice patio. Inside the palace - flashy luxury and bad taste IMHO. In my opinion, even in Versailles it is somehow more modest. Good, perhaps, only the Japanese room. In addition, you need to stand in two queues for 10-25 minutes. In the buildings - only an organized tour, that is, you can’t stay anywhere.
It was unpleasant to watch how some kind of ghoul paid off the people's money exclusively for himself. Especially knowing that the empire at the time of the construction of this luxury was breathing its last and soon disappeared.
Is it worth visiting the royal palaces in the future (especially if they do not have a museum with works of art)? We'll keep thinking.
Walk along the local Broadway - Istiklal Street. We did not notice masterpieces of architecture in this long and deep stone (without a single blade of grass, bush or tree) gutter.
First, the aqueduct. It was on the spot fully consistent with both the photographs and the description.
Then the mosques - Shahzade, Suleymaniye. Spacious, bright, solemn, rather modest.
Grand Bazaar - noisy, crowded, colorful, very expensive. Real East.
Miniaturk Park. In the plus - a walk in the park in sunny weather; looked at all the best that is in Turkey from architecture in miniature at a time; got good photos. In the red - the details on the models are not worked out; In fact, all this does not look very impressive. To put it mildly.
On the way back to Sultankhmet we got into a severe traffic jam. After fruitless attempts to get where it is necessary from several directions, they left and went on foot.
Blue Mosque. All large mosques are very difficult to distinguish from each other both outside and inside. From the mosque itself, recognized as the most beautiful, they expected more.
Boat trip along the Bosphorus. Quite a decent two-hour review on a normal boat, without stops, for 10 lire from the bow.
It was our first experience of completely independent tourism - we bought plane tickets, insurance, booked a hotel, a transfer ourselves. We never took an organized tour - we used audio guides.
Top best places for us - Hagia Sophia, Archaeological Museum, Aquarium. The worst are both Sultan's palaces.
We were in no hurry to check in everywhere and quickly, slowly walked through the streets, on the way we went into shops, ate corn, chestnuts, bagels, tea, fruit sweets that they make before your eyes, pomegranate and orange juice, sherbet.
We had breakfast in the room with Turkish yogurt, airyan, cheese, olives, bread. Lunch was combined with dinner in normal cafes - restaurants. By the way, Istanbul is not a cheap city.
The shopping program almost failed due to the fact that in normal stores the prices are the same as in Odessa, and it was too lazy to look for cheap places.
