Istanbul-First Glimpse.

9-29-13 ISTANBUL: The flight was uneventful, always a blessing. After ten hours in the air, we got to Istanbul at noon, zipped through passport entry, connected with the NatGeo guides who vanned us to the hotel, and we checked in to the Divan Istanbul. We dumped the stuff in the room and took a walk through Taksim Square and a couple adjoining streets. We peeked into an orthodox church and went back to the hotel for a pre-dinner nap. We are seven hours ahead of EDT.

On the drive from IST to the hotel, we saw a clean city with loads of plantings lining the highway, plenty of ongoing construction, and tons of people out and about on Sunday. Most of them were dressed like other Europeans including most of the women. There were some headscarves, used by about twenty percent of mostly older women. The skyline has lots if high rises and loads of minarets.

We got a look at the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus as we went by them in the van. The old city and historic buildings are in the part of the city south of the Golden Horn on the European side of Istanbul. The Asian side is mostly residential, including the home of our guide, Aydin. He and our other guide, his wife Ruya, took us to dinner at a great restaurant that served a bunch of appetizers and a main course of kabab—great. And it left us all 'stuffed'.


Taksim Square, site of demonstrations a few months ago.

Flower stall in the square.

The crescent and star.

The restaurant, we ate on that upper floor.