Istanbul

I have dreamed of going to Istanbul for years. Years ago when we were living in Germany I wanted to go, but it didn't seem like a city we could do with our younger children, so we opted to take them to the Turkish coast.  You can find that post here, here, here, and here. We made the right call in waiting and not taking the children. Don't get me wrong, Istanbul is very child-friendly, but it would have limited us in where we may have chosen to eat and what we saw.  Istanbul in August is very hot!  If I were to go again, I would probably would choose to go in the spring or fall. I love Istanbul. I love that it is on the Bosphorus Straight and that you can be one minute in Europe and the next in Asia. I love the food it is so delicious and I love that it is so easy to get around. I found the people to be very friendly. Istanbul is so full of history.  On our first day in Istanbul, we walked the Hagia Sophia;  however, the line was super long, so we chose to go to the Blue Mosque.  One thing you need to know before going into the different mosques is that women need to cover their heads and legs need to be at least covered to the knees.  Men need to wear pants or at least have shorts to their knees.  If you forget, you can purchase the appropriate clothing on sight.  The Blue Mosque was beautiful.  The detailed tile work is amazing. The mosque was built in 8 years from 1609 to 1617.  The timeframe for its construction is just incredible. After the mosque, we walked back over to the Hagia Sophia and the line was still around the block, so we grabbed a quick snack called the Simit.  A Simit is like a bagel that you can get plain, filled with Nutella, or filled with cream cheese.  It was pretty good. Then we made our way down to the waterfront via the streetcar where we took a ferry over to the other side of Istanbul.  We wanted to go to the  Asia side  The ride was only a few minutes long and we got some lunch/dinner.  We had a doner kebabs  Yum!  We also bought some strawberries from a fruit vendor. We weren't ready to head back to the hotel, so we took the street car back up to the Blue Mosque where we watched the sunset and saw the mosque and plaza in a different light.  It was a perfect day. Stay tuned for more photos from day 1.