Istanbul

After a long overnight journey from Thessaloníki I arrived in Istanbul. I hadn't managed to get so much sleep on the bus, as we had to get off a couple times at the border for passport control and to purchase a visa. The first thing to try and do was to get out of the massive Istanbul bus station and try and find my hostel. Some other people on the bus were trying to get to a similar part of town, so we all set off to brave the Istanbul rush hour.

After a relaxing first day in Istanbul spent mainly waiting for my room to be ready and then sleeping in it, I began the second day with visits to the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya near my hostel.









As it was a Thursday, I decided to check out the weekly street market in the area of the city around Kadırga and Kumkapı. It felt like the least touristy part of Istanbul that I experienced, and one of the nicest.





In the afternoon I went to the Basilica Cistern, a massive underground chamber, originally used in Byzantine times for water storage.









The next day with spending some time exploring the Grand Bazaar, time that I probably should have actually spent shopping rather than putting it off to later in my trip.







The spice bazaar down by the river was very busy but an interesting place to walk through on the way to the ferries that cross the Bosphorus to the Asian side of Istanbul.