Daily yummy breakfast mini-buffet at our guesthouse (crepes, hard-boiled eggs, cheeses, tomatoes, cucumbers, breads, honey, jams, cereals, yogurt).
Topkapi Palace - primary residence for most of the 30+ Ottoman sultans that ruled from 1453 to 1853. Amazing collections of jewels, clothing, weapons, manuscripts, and holy relics (Abrahams cooking pot, hair of the prophet Mohammed, and Moses walking staff).
Hagia Sophia - cathedral turned mosque turned museum. Easily my favorite site in Istanbul as it contains Byzantine architecture and tile mosaics starting 500 AD and in the 1400's the Christian art was removed or plastered over and it was converted to a mosque. In 1930's it was changed to a museum and the Christian art is still being uncovered. Amazing mix of time periods and religions...I couldn't wait for the group to see this site (I saw it in 2013).
Grand Bazaar - just overwhelming.. thousands of shops for clothes, carpets, and souvenirs.
Dinner with the owners of the guesthouse. Ahmet and Yesim and their super cute daughter, Derin helped us feel welcome to Istanbul.
We all tried some Turkish coffee.
Dave hit the archeological museum with the rest of the gang while Amy took a 2 hour hop-on-hop-off bus tour.
Eating simet and other breads with cheese and Nutella from a street vendor. Yum.
It seemed every meal has something special about it (delicious items, unique servers, sparklers, traveling musicians, watching a soccer game, etc).
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