June 5, 2014 - Counting Down
In just 3 weeks we will be off to Istanbul. We will arrive 2 days before we board the ship so we can do some additional sightseeing in Istanbul. The Rick Steves video of the city and the DK guide to the 10 Top Things are real motivators. They provide useful insights for getting around and prioritizing the use of time. Our hotel is booked, and we will have a private guide and car for touring on our first full day. The next day we board the ship after having the day to roam on our own.
The cruise line is Oceania, and this is our first cruise with them. We have heard great things about them. We will be able to board at 3:00 PM on June 30, and the ship will not sail until 4:00 PM on July 1. This will be a 12 day voyage from Istanbul to Venice. We have opted to book the next cruise from Venice to Rome for an additional 10 days. The ship is Insignia. It carries 650 passengers, and it is small enough to go into ports not often visited by cruise ships. The drawback, if you can call it that, is that there are no sea days in this itinerary. We will be on the go all the time. The beds had better be good. We have been told the meals will be more than satisfying. Energy should not be a problem. If our legs hold out we will be fine. I am recovering from the surgery required by the ligament tear I suffered on the last cruise. My physical therapy should wrap up just before we leave. Alice is planning on having her left knee replaced when we return. Her doctor has always said she would tell him when it needs to be done. We meet with him next week to set the wheels in motion.
We have not had to fly out of the country to join a ship since 2010. This journey starts with an eleven hour flight from Chicago to Istanbul. We return on a nine hour flight from Rome. We are not looking forward to that, but the ports of call will more than make up for it.
June 29, 2014 - Istanbul
After 3 months of recovering from foot surgery to repair a tendon that tore off of the top of my left arch in Manaus, Brazil we are on the road again. Alice has been suffering pain in her left knee, but she was fitted for an unloading brace the day before we left home. It has relieved her pain, but she has a knee replacement scheduled for August 4.
In any event, we left home on Friday, June 27, at 10:15 PM for a direct flight to Istanbul. The flight was great. We arrived on Saturday, and checked into our hotel at 6:30 PM. The clerk informed us that since we were staying for two nights, he had upgraded us to a corner room on the front of the hotel on the top guest floor.
Topkapi Palace and the cruise terminal on the other side of the Golden Horn. The other side looks at a block of hotels all lower than us. We are the highest hotel in the area
After dropping our bags in the room and freshening up a bit, we headed out walking toward Hagia Sophia. It was seven o'clock, but even after our eleven hour flight, we felt energized. That only got better. The street in front of the hotel was blocked to traffic all the way to Hagia Sophia. There were crowds of people in the square from Hagia Sophia all the way to the Blue Mosque. We walked along observing fountains and picnickers, wondering what was going on. We got to a point next to the Blue Mosque where a stage was set up, and musicians were performing lively music. There were several large screens set up to broadcast the performance. Picnic tables filed the square all the way down to the Hippodrome. These tables were filled with people eating dinner. All of the meals were in the same printed cardboard boxes. They were breaking the fast on the first day of Ramadan. The government provided meals, thus the same boxes.
We were befriended by a young man, who took us to his family at one of the tables. He offered to share his meal with us.
Moving on, we arrived at the two large obelisks in the Hippodrome. From there we started back. We opted for the path that took us through a long line of booths where merchandise of all sorts was on sale. Eventually we were back at the Blue Mosque. It was lit up, as the sun had set.
From the Mosque we headed back toward the hotel.
Kudos to Bonnie Green at Cruises International for getting us into such a super hotel.
We took plenty of pictures of all of this. Some will be posted here, when we get to a wifi connection that does not block us from Blogger. This hotel site does.
After a good night's sleep we were in the restaurant at 7:45 Sunday morning. We were the first to arrive. It was beautiful. We ate well and headed to the lobby to wait for our private guide. Bonnie had booked a private guide with driver for 8 hours of touring. She arrived promptly at 9. We sat for a short time to get agreement with her, Dilek, on places to visit . She was delighted that one of our must stops was the Chora Museum. Upon boarding our minivan the driver even had a wooden step to make loading and unloading easier and safer.
We had a full 8 hours of sightseeing that included, among other things, The Chora, Pierre Loti Point for a commanding view of the Golden Horn, the Old Town and the New City, the Spice Museum, Gilata Tower, Taksim Square and the Cistern. We stopped for lunch at a good place on the square at Gilata Tower. Another marvelous day that is not over yet. In thirty minutes we will be picked up and taken to a dinner cruise for the evening. We will return about 12:30. We were able to book this through our hotel. Everyone has been extremely gracious and helpful.
Well have to get cleaned up for dinner. More tomorrow.
