It was May Day (Labor Day) on Tuesday and the metro was closed, the street in front of the hotel was closed, thousands of police officers were out, and many more protesters were marching to Taksim Square. We decided it was a great time to get out of the city so we set sail to Büyükada, the largest of the nine Princes' Islands.
These islands don't allow motorized vehicles on them so you either take a horse carriage ride (called phaeton), walk or rent bikes.
We decided to rent bikes but they were going FAST so we had to take what we could get... and Michael got this one. It was a good purse and lunch holder!
The island was hilly and worth it. Gorgeous views, grazing horses (with their foals), and one crazy dilapidated mansion that we took about a dozen photos of... it was pretty cool.
We got back to the city just in time to have a delicious seafood dinner at sunset on the Galata Bridge.
It would have been perfect, except the metros were still not running and we had to walk uphill (a very steep hill) to our hotel in Taksim Square. Fortunately, we found Galata Tower on our way!
Exhausted and happy, we got back safe and slept very well last night! And it's good we got some sleep because we walked over 10 miles today while discovering a little area called Fatih a little outside the main city area.
Chora Church is SUPER hard to find. We took 3 metros and walked at least a mile trying to find the darn thing just to find out it was closed on Wednesdays! Go figure. But we did have lunch at the little cafe there... and met this guy who was determined to eat Michael's kabaps!
The cats! Oh my goodness. But after we finished our lunch, we started the walking tour along the Theodosian Wall from the 5th century. The stairs were not up to code...
But the views were breathtaking!
We walked along the wall in the little town and peeked into a Greek church, some places that used to be synagogues, some places the used to be churches, and some small mosques (including one by Sinan, the famed Turkish architect). It was very residential and full of kids asking us our names, asking for money, and playing soccer down the street as we were walking. Very quaint. But so quaint that we decided not to walk all the way back to the metro and realized that the ferry no longer picks up at the dock near us. So we had a lovely walk along the water all the way back into the city.
After dinner, we decided to check out this church that's near our hotel! Gorgeous!
Sant'Antonio di Padova was a lovely find! You can barely see it, but the Jesus above the alter was really neat! And the twisted Jesus sculpture outside the church was even neater!
After checking that out, we decided that we had enough time to go to the Pera Museum. They had a fantastic Goya exhibit on the top 3 floors but the first two floors were dedicated to art and artifacts of Istanbul. Gorgeous space and wonderfully thought-out exhibit.
The first four and a half days have been fantastic. We're really looking forward to the next four and a half days!
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