Last week we went on a holiday to Istanbul. It was only five days so we only stayed in Istanbul, exploring the city and so on. Unlike other holidays, the brown boy didn’t have to feed Orin this time!

Istanbul is such a beautiful, picturesque city with so much character.

We loved the food, starting with the street food, Simit, roasted chestnuts and Turkish coffee.

We learnt some Turkish words to get by:

In 1928, Ataturk changed the Turkish alphabet from the previous Ottoman (Arabic) script to Roman letters/Latin alphabet to improve the literacy of the new republic of Turkey. More here.

We were also really interested in seeing the Byzantium remains around the city, but we mainly saw the outstanding Hagia Sophia, the moody Basilica Cistern and the Stone of Million.

We couldn’t manage to fit in the Camlica tower and other newer architecture on this trip, but worth a visit later on!

We went shopping in the Grand Bazar or Mısır Çarşısı as it’s called in Turkish:

On one of the days we took a cruise down the Bosporus, starting from the Golden Horn and going all the way up to the Black Sea.

We also visited the neighbourhoods of Balat-Fatih, Beyoğlu and around.

Overall the trip was fabulous. We caught up on much needed rest, drawing and reading, and even managed a trip to the local Legoland!

Our links:

Street food: https://www.timeout.com/istanbul/restaurants/the-best-turkish-street-foods and https://www.nomadepicureans.com/europe/turkey/street-food-istanbul/
Sulemani Cheesecake from Viyana Kahvesi
Cook Life Balat http://cooklife.com/ in Balat https://www.goturkey.com/en/blog/hidden-istanbul-a-day-in-balat

Art: Istanbul Modern https://www.istanbulmodern.org/en and Salt Galata https://saltonline.org/en/42/salt-galata

Here are some pages from my journal.

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