Dolmabahçe, Arnavutköy and Rumeli Hisarı

It is time to show you some pictures! Last weekend I could finally start enjoying the Istanbul that everyone loves. Well .. maybe not everyone, but you know what I mean 🙂 The whole week I have to work and my sightseeing consists of Metrobus and all the different people around – by the way, quite interesting from an ethnographical point of view. But on the weekend I can finally be just a normal tourist and have some fun. The first stop was Dolmabahce – a beautiful palace built in European style on the coastline of Bosphorus. I have already been there in 2010, so I decided not to go inside and spare myself 30 liras (12 euros) entrance fee. I actually thought that the guys would see the palace in one hour and I could meanwhile walk around in the nice garden it has. But I was not admitted to the garden without a ticket…. and it took the guys longer to see the palace. So I ended up waiting for 2 hrs alone and then one more hour with some people.. I learn from my mistakes and will not plan like this again =)
As I had 3 hours of waiting I took millions of pictures of the entrance door – the only beauty of Dolmabahce available to me.

I was just taking a picture of this thing with the clock and only later noticed a pretty young lady. Zoomed in for you:

Very stylish! 🙂

What I really really don’t like in Turkey is seeing children working! I know that they are on holidays and probably simply helping out their parents – but I find it really bad.

After that we went to Ortakoy – a nice district on the Bosporus in the area of Besiktas. There is actually a beautiful mosque right near the water, but it was closed for renovation.

There was not much to do there so we went to Mado – a rather expensive café but with delicious and beautifully served food. The first thing to take is naturally çay – the tea.

Yes, that was as delicious as it looks like … mm… and with ice cream. No idea how it is called.

View from the café on the seaside

Time to pay the bill!

Then we walked for a long time along the cost passing all the districts – Kuruçeşme, Arnavutköy and Bebek. Very beautiful and peaceful! Do you remember I told you about the eternal chaos in Istanbul? Well, these are the places to escape it … People even go jogging there… that’s just fantastic )

After that we went again to a café to drink çay ))

And play tavla. I really suck at this game. I was explained the rules at least 3 times and still didn’t’ get it

On the next day I went again to Arnavutkoy to meet a friend and after that I visited an old fortress – Rumeli Hisari. On the way there I met again a very trendy young woman =)