Travels around the world.

On Wednesday I took an all-day tour of the old part of Istanbul with Istanbul Walks .  I recommend this company. They have lots of options for walking in various parts of Istanbul. My guide was very well-informed and gave me more historical background than I could absorb. I met him outside the entrance to the Hagia Sophia museum. We were joined by a guide in training. I was the only customer that day. It was cold and rainy, which you will see in the photos. We first visited the Blue mosque, but I had visited it on Monday, so the pictures of that mosque are on that post . From the Blue mosque we went back to Hagia Sophia .  The Blue Mosque closes at noon and my guide told me that because he talks so long, he sometimes doesn't finish with both before noon, so he liked to start with the Blue Mosque. Here is the outside of Hagia Sophia or the church of Divine Wisdom. The current building was built in 532 by emperor Justinian on the site of an earlier Christian church, built ...

Jim picked up a brochure for me for the company Istanbul Walks . They offer a whole menu of different walking tours. One was listed as starting every Tuesday from Taksim square near our hotel.  It seemed like an easy way to check out the company, so I went to the starting point on Tuesday, but had not called them to register.  It was a cold rainy day and the guide didn't show up. I assume they didn't have anyone signed up for that tour.  As long as I was there, I decided to walk down that street on my own. A tram ran down the middle of the street, but I think otherwise it was supposed to be a pedestrian street. There were several Christian churches here and many buildings from the 19th century and possibly earlier. This church was just off Istiklal street on a side street. It wasn't open, but this foyer was quite pretty. Here's another shot of the ceiling. Here are a couple music shops on Istiklal street. There were lights hanging above the street ...

Our next stop was Istanbul.  We were back in Europe and winter. The last time we had been in Istanbul was 1995. The city has changed a lot in 17 years. We were staying in the same area we stayed in last time and actually our hotel turned out to be just a block from the one we stayed in before.  We wouldn't have recognized the hotel or location, but we remembered the name and the fact that it was on a corner.    We arrived about 4:00 pm and went out for a walk after getting settled in the hotel. This scene is not far from Taksim square, which was walking distance from our hotel. We were happy to be in a city where the streets were walkable.   The next morning I bought a transit card and rode to the old part of Istanbul--the former Constantinople, where the most famous mosques and landmarks of the city are. To get there I rode a funicular down to the bottom of the hill. Then I took a tram across the bridge to the other part of town. This was not across the...