Istanbul, Turkey - Day 3

With an early - and thankfully so - jumpstart, we went to the Topkapi Palace - where the Sultans lived, wined & dined, and even kept their harem. This palace's construction was started in 1453 by Mehmet the Conqueror. Our travel book suggests 1/2 a day here to visit at a minimium, and they arent joking. Luckily they suggest not only to get there early but also the main highlights.

We visited the Harem's quarters - which was a beautiful blue tiled palace in itself; it is also where the Sultan slept and spent most of his living time too.

In the palace treasury - the amount of gems to be see is uncountable. The biggest is a 86 carat diamond which is the 5th largest in the world. It was found in the trash and later purchased by a street pedlar for 3 spoons; hense the setting and the stone is called The Spoonmaker's Diamond.

The Sacred Safe Keeping room was my favorite and was the most inspiring; God - or Allah, something Holy was felt in this building. It houses relics such as Moses' staff, something of King David's and Abraham's, St. John's (Baptist? We arent sure) arm bone and portion of skull, as well as many other relics for Muslim prophet Mohammed. Many other relics as well. No words come to mind to really grasp what this was like.

Next we went to the Grand Bazaar - and thought we started to find it... after walking in what was a local's clothing, shoes, accessory market for 2 hours we were told and realized that since it was day 2 of Eid, the Grand Bazaar would not be open until after Day 3 of Eid.
With disappointment, we walked to a near by and more tourist area where lots of shops were situated - we haggled more there but it just was not the same. Still was fun.

We had a 19:55 flight from the smaller of the two Istanbul airports.
Our shuttle mini-bus was about to drop us and other passengers off at the International Departures when we all reminded him we needed Domestic Turkish flights. He apologized and smiled. We all piled back into the mini-bus to have him drive us 50 yards to the next door for Domestic Departures. :)

As if our adventure was over yet, we were hungry for some hot food for dinner - we looked around and found somewhere advertising pizza. I asked how big it was and the girls at the kisok laughed at me. I didnt understand. They said "It's a cone!" and laughed more.
We looked for other options and finally it was Cone pizza or French Fries for dinner - so we went with the Cone pizza experience.

After the flight we picked up our bags in the what is the smallest airport I have ever seen - although Matt has seen at least 1 smaller; this one at least had 4 walls unlike the one he arrived at in Thailand.

We arrived at 23:00 at our hotel to find out our travel agency booked the incorrect dates for us and only did our tour group for the next day flag this up to the hotel staff and owner with a tour reminder phone call. So we got very lucky to have a room at all during this festival time and stayed in a 5 person dorm room - just the two of us.

We walked around 8 miles this day.