We arrived at Istanbul at 10:00. Ayva and Ari stayed in bed while Tavis, Addison, and I got off the shipped and toured the area on foot. Our goal was to find the Grand Bazaar.
It took us a while to get off the ship because so many people were disembarking. It was a long maze to find our way out of the terminal. Eventually we made it onto the streets and just started walking West. We eventually came to a bridge and found underground pathways to cross busy streets. After crossing the bridge, there seemed to be shops everywhere, but this was not the Grand Bazaar.
We kept walking West, up the hill. About 45 minutes later, we found ourselves at the entrance of the Grand Bazaar. There are metal detectors everywhere here. Once we entered, it seemed very similar to our side, but inside a building. Words cannot describe the sheer volume of vendors and small market stands. Everywhere you look, as far as the eye could see was shoppings. I have never seen such an endless market. It is amazing how many stores sold the same merchandise! Each area sold the same type of products. When we first entered, every store sold jewelry. Then we walked through a clothing area. There were tons of tiny stores all competing with each other. The vendors were good though. If you said “No Thank you”, they left you alone. We just window shopped this morning since there was really nothing we wanted to purchase. After leaving the shops we just picked a direction and continued walking. We found huge castle walls and eventually came to an entrance. Inside the ancient wall was a huge park. It reminded me of Stanley Park. We also went into a small cistern. By the time we got back to the ship, we had walked over 13km.
Ayva and Ari enjoyed staying on the ship. They felt like they were the only ones onboard and had free reign of all areas. There were no line ups anywhere!
We were quite tired from our morning trek so we got into our bathing suits and went to the pool deck to find some lounging chairs. We also grabbed some lunch from the buffet. After eating, we swam at the pool and sun bathed for a bit. Once it started getting crowded, Tavis and I went back to our room and spent 2 hours figuring out a car rental to replace our train to Bressanone on Monday. Darn construction on the train the only 3 days we are planning to be there!
By 18:30, we decided to take Ayva shopping for shoes. The Bazaar closed at 19:30 so we knew we had to hurry. When we crossed the bridge, Ayva found a shoe vendor with genuinely fake Nike Airforces for 400 turkish lira ($20 CAD). She tried them on and learned that her shoe size in Turkey is 26. Addison also bought 1.5kg of Turkish Delight a little ways into the shops! We wandered around as the storefronts began to close. We probably could have gotten better deals, but we were not good at haggling and we didn’t have any small Turkish Lira bills.
We slowly made our way back to the cruise ship. We stopped on the bridge on the way back for some photos of the beautiful sunset. We got back around 20:15 and went straight to the buffet for dinner. This time, we only walked 8km around town. My legs were definitely feeling the exercise today from walking over 25km (over 35,000 steps)!
After dinner, we thought we would catch a show. Ayva and I stopped for drinks and onion rings along the way. We thought we were running late, and Tavis told us the place was packed. When we arrived, the theatre was practically empty because the show isn’t until tomorrow. Instead, we went up to the top deck to take photos of the city at night. By chance, we got to see the moon rising above the city. I have never seen such a beautiful moonrise! We tried to capture it in photos but it doesn’t even begin to capture the size or colour of the moon as it rose.
We watched us leave the port at 23:00 and went to bed around midnight. Tomorrow is a sea day so it will definitely be a sleep in day!
Nautical Info
MSC Splendida navigated from one Turkish Point to another, navigating from Kusadasi to Istanbul through the Dardanelles Strait and into the Sea of Marmara. We passed under several bridges whilst on approach to the port. Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, serving as the country’s economic, cultural, and historic hub. The city straddles the Bosporus Strait, lying in both Europe and Asia, and has a population of over 15 million residents, comprising 19% of the population of Turkey. Istanbul is the most populous European city, and the world’s 15th largest city. We departed at 23:00. The distance between Istanbul and Corfu will be 722 nautical miles.