On our first full day here we walked down through a shopping district to the water's edge, from where we could look across at the old area ("Sultanahmet") where the famous Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sofia are found. We took a tram around the waterfront to the northern end of the line, from where we walked to the Dolmabahce Palace. That's pronounced something like "Dol-ma-ba-jay". This is a former Sultan's Palace which was used by Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, and he died there at the age of 57. It is huge and sits right on the edge of the Bosphorous.
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| Fast modern trams |
The palace has beautiful gardens. We were also struck by the carefully manicured lanscaping and floral displays along the sides of the motorway into town from the airport yesterday. The turks maintain some very nice gardens.
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| Roses in the palace gardens |
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| The swan fountain |
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| Sue takes a breather beside the Bosphorous |
We rode back up the hill from the Palace to Taksim Square on the "funicular", which is a more modern and shinier version of the Kelburn Cable Car, except that the whole journey is underground. Istanbul is quite hilly with hardly any level ground in the area around us, except for the strip along the water's edge. This area is called Beyoglu.
