Having arrived in Istanbul late the night prior, we were excited to get out and explore the city! We woke up and enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our hotel buffet – featuring fresh honeycomb, homemade bread, rock chocolates, and Turkish delight. It was truly a treat for the taste buds.
Before we could do anything fun, we had some important errands to run. Our bags have suffered significant wear and tear since we’ve been travelling, and the stitching for my backpack straps was slowly coming undone. I had found a bag repair shop located next to the famous Grand Bazaar, so we headed that way to get the bag all fixed up. It only took about 10 minutes and was good as new, so we dropped it back off at the hotel and went for our first day of exploring!
My dad is a huge history buff and has always been fascinated by the Ottoman Empire, so he wanted a day of solo exploring the streets he had read so much about. That left us to explore the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia, which are next to each other not far from our hotel.
The Blue Mosque was stunning! The ceilings were lined with lights, and the floor had a nice thick red carpet. We had to take our shoes off to enter the mosque, so it did smell a bit like feet. There were active worshippers there, and it was just an incredible experience to see such a famous religious site.
Right as we were leaving the Blue Mosque, the call to prayer sirens started sounding so we were no longer allowed to enter the Hagia Sofia during this time. We appreciated Hagia Sofia from the outside, and headed back to the hotel for afternoon tea with parents.
After our teas, we hopped on the metro with my parents as a way to see more of the city. We ended up riding one of the lines to the very end, to the city’s outskirts, taking in the sights and sounds of Istanbul all the way.
Dinner at Olive, a nearby rooftop restaurant, was the perfect end to the day. We enjoyed the meal and my dad kept us entertained with the history of everything we had seen that day.
The following morning, we visited the Basilica Cistern Museum, a fascinating underground structure once filled with groundwater. It was built during the Byzantine Empire to provide water for the palace and surrounding areas, and was built with hundreds of columns of all kinds, most of which are still standing. It now only has a fraction of the water it once held, but in its place are statues and lights to create an interesting ambiance.
From there, we walked to the Grand Bazaar where we split off from my parents to explore the market ourselves. The market was much more organised and peaceful than we expected, coming from the night markets in Asia. There was shops of all kinds, ranging from clothing to food to antiques. All of the little alleys looked the same, so it was so easy to get lost in the massiveness of the Bazaar.
That evening, we headed out to a restaurant one of my parents friends recommended – a rooftop spot called Seven Hills, which boasted breathtaking views of the Blue Mosque, the Bosphorus, and the Asian side of Istanbul. Interestingly, the restaurant encourages customers to hold food out over the edge so that the seagulls can swoop in and be hand fed straight from your seat. We decided not to partake in this weird tradition because we didn’t want a dirty bird pooping in our food.
When we got back to the hotel, we went down to the spa to spend some time in the sauna. Saz had had a cough for over a month, but 20 minutes in the extremely hot and humid sauna seemed to have finally cleared it! We walked back to our rooms feeling extremely relaxed and sleepy.
The next morning, I tried to wake up before sunrise to get some drone shots over the Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque. I don’t generally like to fly or draw attention to the drone in really busy areas, and seeing as this was one of the most popular tourist spots in all of Istanbul I knew I had to go really early to be able to fly it. Unfortunately, I snoozed my alarm one too many times and despite showing up before 7 am, it was already quite crowded and there were too many guards around, so we bailed on that plan.
We headed back to the hotel for a quick breakfast, before walking to Topkapi Palace for our guided tour. The palace previously served as the administrative centre of the Ottoman Empire, and was converted into a museum after the fall of the Ottomans.
As we walked through the grounds, we saw so many interesting and well preserved artifacts from ancient times, such as weapons, armour, and jewels. The palace had a beautiful view over the Bosphorus, and we spent a few hours wandering the grounds, taking in all the sights.
After the palace, we had lunch with some old family friends from our Beijing days – Mr. And Mrs. Brown. They had taught in Beijing the same time we lived there, had since moved to Istanbul and had been living there for 7+ years. It was great to catch up with them, but Saz & I had to bounce after a few hours for a very important date – THE BARBIE MOVIE PREMIER!
There were absolutely no cinemas in the “tourist district” of Sultanahmet, so we found a cinema close to the metro line that was airing the movie. We unknowingly bought “gold class” cinema tickets, and were surprised when we showed up to the most luxurious theatre of all time! Our seats were huge and comfy, and fully reclined with a foot rest.
The movie was obviously amazing, and we finally found our dream jobs: beach!
That evening, we attended a Whirling Dervishes show. The Whirling Dervishes are a religious sect that are known for a religious ritual, where they play music and spin in a trance that they believe brings them closer to god. It was really interesting to see, but I will not be converting to that religion any time soon.
The next morning was our last in Istanbul, so I knew it was now or never for my early morning drone shots. Despite being exhausted from a jam packed few days exploring Istanbul, I reluctantly crawled out of bed at 4:30 am, snuck out trying not to wake a sleepy Saz, and headed towards the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. I found a secluded spot near the mosques to launch the drone, and soon discovered that the early morning wake up was more than worth it.
I got a magnificent aerial tour, watching the sun rise over the Bosphorus, Hagia Sofia, and Blue Mosque. The whole square was already packed – the earliest call to prayer is before sunrise and I honestly couldn’t believe how many people were already awake and at the mosque.
To my complete surprise, just as I was landing the drone, I saw Saz walking up the street looking for me! She had woken up, realised I was gone and come to find me! We headed back towards the hotel around 5:30 am to get a few more hours of sleep before our last day of exploring Istanbul.
It was my dad’s birthday, and the birthday boy only had 1 request… more history! We hopped on the metro again to take us to another remnant of the historical city – the Theodosian Walls. The walls were built by the Byzantine Empire back in 4th century, and protected the city for centuries from foreign invaders. The walls were famously conquered in 1453 by Sultan Mehmet of the Ottoman Empire, which began the reign of the Ottomans in Istanbul (then Constantinople).
We started at the 1453 Museum, which had a really cool 360 degree immersive historical reenactment experience, with important moments from the 1453 siege on the walls. Birthday boy dad thrived in his role as tour guide, constantly giving us fun facts about the time period. We then got to actually walk up close to the wall, and it was amazing to see them still standing and relatively intact after all of the battles, natural disasters, and hundreds of years passing.
When we got back to the hotel, we stopped through the hotel gift shop. The shopkeeper was super friendly and funny and let us try on and pose with some of the relics – Ottoman armour and weapons!
It was a great sales tactic. If it weren’t for the pesky airline rules about weight my dad would’ve bought the 15 kg helmet and sword in a heartbeat..
That evening, we had a birthday dinner for my dad, where we ordered the waiter recommended meat platter. When the platter arrived, we were shook at how massive it was, but everything tasted amazing and we did much more damage than we initially thought we were capable of. Luckily, there was also a lil kitten and cat lurking around to help dispose of any leftover fish and meat.
We even managed to surprise my dad by secretly buying him a Ottoman figurine he had admired earlier, which he loved.
We finished our last evening in Istanbul with another trip to the hotel sauna, and packed our bags for our upcoming adventure: an 8 day tour through multiple cities in Turkey with a Taiwanese tour group!
To see our full Istanbul gallery, click here!