Thursday, February 24, 2011

Day 4- Bosphorus Ferry

Istanbul is the only major city in the world that straddles two continents and the Bosphorus Strait is the boundary that forms the divide. Here's a little map that better illustrates.

Our hotel and most of the sites were on the European side, so the purpose of our ferry trip was to cross the Bosphorus over to the Asian side.

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The scenery was really beautiful, but the boys were mostly interested in following the birds on top of the boat.

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These little fishing boats/restaurants catch the fish and cook them up right there.

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Dolmabahce Palace, if we had one more day in Istanbul we would have visited it.

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Rumelihisari, Sultan Mehmed's fortress as he tried to take Constantinople.

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More of the fortress/castle.

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The Bosphorus Bridge. Every year they have a marathon that crosses the bridge so the course includes two continents. According to our guide, aside from the marathon, the only other time they've closed down the bridge was so Bono of U2 could run across the bridge.

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More of Sultan Mehmed's forts.

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This young woman wouldn't leave Ike alone.

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Fancy summer homes on the Asian side.

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More Bosphorus photos here.

2 comments:

Layla said...

Stunning photos! I've always wanted to go to Istanbul and now I know for sure that I need to visit. Ike is super cute too!

Carbonneau said...

Bosphorus Strait looks AMAZING! can you say you have been to Asia and Europe at the same time? or do they have an imaginary line down the middle of the water? Great photos!!