Exploits in Istanbul 4.2 In Arnavutköy there are loads of very lovely yalis (that shouldn’t have a dot on the ‘i’, but I can’t do that) – grand wooden houses for the summer built from […]
Archive | trips
great finds (1)
Exploits in Istanbul 4.1 Having done our tourist duty at the Blue Mosque (very big and very splendid), we plotted a way of getting ferries and buses to a couple of places up the Bosphorus […]
cisterns and bazaars
Exploits in Istanbul 3.2 The Grand Bazaar is a collection of wonderful buildings full of lots of stuff. But the streets below had some gloriously disturbing child mannequins. Lots more, but these are the best/scariest. […]
mime challenge
Exploits in Istanbul 3.1 No plug for the sink in the apartment. But we stumbled across u-bend alley and eventually found a place with a plug that looked as though it might do the job. […]
asian side
Exploits in Istanbul 2.2 Ferries must be ridden, so they were, over to the Asian side. We went over to Kadiköy and walked across the neck to see across the bay towards Fenerbahçe. One of […]
dry elections
Exploits in Istabul 2.1 I’ve managed to be in several interesting places when elections were happening – Ecuador, many years ago, Marrakech, and now Istanbul. They don’t stint on the bunting – it seems you […]
transport tales
Exploits in Istanbul 1.3 The third oldest underground railway in the world, built in 1875, a funicular that runs up from Karakoy to Tunel. Brunel’s Rotherhithe tunnel is older, but you can’t see nearly as […]
simit by the bosphorus
Exploits in Istanbul 1.2 Having read about simits, one had to be eaten. Here it is beside the Bosphorus. Also eaten today: a Turkish breakfast (small – hard-boiled egg, cheese, tomato, cucumber, chilli and olive […]
thank heavens for sick germans
Exploits in Istanbul 1.1 The rubber foot on Robin’s stick wore through on our first evening in Istanbul, so a replacement was rather urgently required. The local pharmacy thought hard and sent us up the […]
gallivanting 3
The Jerwood Gallery in Hastings is a lovely building, although they clearly haven’t quite worked out what to do about the seagull guano streaks on the glazed black tiles. It works really well with the […]