After transiting the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara overnight, we sailed into Istanbul at the very reasonable hour of 9am. Many people we've spoken to have said that Istanbul is one of the prettiest ports to sail into as you get to see some of the more interesting landmarks.

The city straddles the Bosphorus Straits and is the only city in the world that sits in two continents . Three great empires (Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman) have controlled it, with each leaving a piece of their culture behind. The Greeks recognised the value of the area and Greek Coloniser Byzas founded Byzantium in 685 BC. A thousand years later, the Roman Emperor Constantine chose the area as the new capital of the empire. Then during the Crusades, the Sultan Mehmet attacked the city and in 1453 the city became part of the Ottoman Empire.

The ship was docked in the Karakoy part of town close to the vicinity of the Galata Tower. As this was only about a 20 minute walk from the old town, we decided to walk in from the ship. On the walk we crossed over the Galata Bridge and the section of water that leads to the Golden Horn.

The Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Mosque) is one of the city’s enduring landmarks. Built between 1609 and 1617, it takes its name from the thousands of blue and green Iznik tiles that line the interior walls. As the mosque is used for worship, they close it off to non Muslim visitors prior to each prayer session. We arrived at the mosque just after they closed it to visitors in preparation for midday prayers. This meant we were right next to it when the call to prayer was broadcast. It was interesting as the initial call would come from the Blue Mosque, with the various other Mosques across the city repeating it, so there was this kind of echo effect.

Since we had to wait awhile to be able to get back in, we decided to have some lunch . After having lunch, we headed back down to the mosque and proceeded around to the visitors entry. After donning our head scarves and mosque supplied skirts, we headed in and had a look around.

The inside is split into various areas – men’s pray area, women’s pray area and the area reserved for the non Muslim visitors. Above everyone’s head are thousands of small tiles, each placed to create various patterns and mosaics.

At the other end of the hippodrome is the Hagia Sofia (Ayasofa Muzesi). Its interior is lined with marble and pillars from Ephesus. As there was long line to get to the ticket office, we weren’t able to get in to see it other than from the outside.

Next stop was the largest covered market in the world, the Grand Bazaar. It is a collection of 4000 shops, café’s and restaurants spread across 65 winding streets. The Bazaar was crowded and we changed between being invisible to the shop owner to being hassled to purchase something. Our attempts at haggling were ok, a carpet salesman didn’t like our suggestion for purchasing a small matt (fail), however we were good at purchasing headphones and a t-shirt (win).

After the Bazaar and another stop at a café for a beverage and some baklava, we made our way back towards the ship. Unfortunately we turned left when we should have turned right, and found ourselves further way from the ship than what we intended. It was a very brisk walk back to the ship, with each of us checking the time on a regular basis.

Almost 30k steps later (according to my pedometer) we were back on the ship and with three minutes to spare before 'all aboard’ time – that said being the last two passengers to get onboard meant we were clapped when we arrived…

Istanbul is such a varied city, that it is impossible to see everything it offers in just one day. I think it will be added to the ‘need to go back to list’.

Fun fact:
The Topkapi Palace (i.e. where the Sultan’s Harem lived) kitchens once employed over 1000 servants who worked around the clock to serve the 5000 residents that lived in the palace.