Bursa

Lots to see in Bursa, there is a beautiful square where people sit and take tea and meet friends surrounded by the most exquisite shops selling beautiful silk fabrics. Nihal also took us to an old Hammam that has been renovated and is now used as a cultural centre, a beautiful building inside and out.

Bursa

Drove from Istanbul to Bursa (4 hour drive) to visit with Nihal a very good friend of Hasmet's. Nihal is an artist and was very kind to surprise me with a beautiful portrait of me in my younger days. We stayed in Nihal's beautiful home and enjoyed the most wonderful turkish hospitality (Nihal is a great cook and we ate delicious food) Nihal proudly showed us around Bursa, a very important city for Silk Manufacturing (it was on the silk route). Bursa is a very pretty city and shopping for silk scarves is an amazing experience as there are so many beautiful shops, making it very difficult to choose from.

Istanbul

Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque is undergoing a huge renovation and has been closed for the past few years, I'm not sure when the renovations will be finished but I hope they will be completed on my next visit. We did get to visit the smaller Mosque on site and the cemetry

Beyoglu

Beyoglu is a very trendy upscale shopping district in Istanbul, the girls absolutely loved it. The day we visited there was a wonderful celebration with baloons falling from the sky promoting Istanbul as the Cultural Capital for 2010

Little school girl we met in Uskadur

Dave from Folk Art gave us this little Canadian Mountie and asked us to take pictures with it from all over Turkey. On our first day out and about we met this lovely little turkish girl and she got talking to Hasmet, asking him all about where we were from etc, anyway we ended up giving her the mountie, she was so happy. The mountie couldn't have found a better home.

Arrived in Istanbul, we are staying in an apartment on the Asian side in a town called Uskudar and we can see the western side from our balcony. The ferry from Uskudar over to the Western side is very frequent and takes only a short time. So far we have visited the Istanbul Modern, the Blue Mosque (closed for renovations) The Grand Bazaar (absolutely amazing shopping) and the Taksim area of Istanbul, famous for it's very beautiful shopping district. We are all enchanted with this incredible city and are very happy that we will end our vacation here as we have so much more that we want to see.