Third Stop: Istanbul, Turkey

ISTANBUL, Turkey

Colorful pottery, like this, was everywhere.  It was charming with

so much character!

The Blue Mosque

Above is the outside

Below is the inside

Walking through a drawbridge type archway on the side of the Blue Mosque

A sampling of some of the street food

Hagia Sophia

(If you look closely you can see a line of people extending from the far left of the picture to the far right.  The line continued to wrap around the side of the building as well.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go inside ... next time!)

I just love this detailed light/lantern leading up to Hagia Sophia

another shot of Hagia Sophia

A random bike in front of a wall pieced together from broken pottery

The entrance to the Grand Bazaar.  They are shops everywhere!!  I loved all the different things to buy and all the different characters selling them all.  They were so friendly in Istanbul!

The Spice Market (or the Egyptian Bazaar)

This was probably my very favorite thing we visited.  It smelled so good and it tasted amazing.  Because we had all our kids with us, they gave us so many samples - samples of different candies and breads.  It was great!

Here is a Turkish symbol ... apparently it is used to ward off bad luck, or to protect one from someone giving you the 'evil eye'.  These were seriously everywhere, I'm not kidding!  Can you guess what our souvenirs looked like?  You guessed it ... the Turkish symbol.  

The Pet Market

The kids were ecstatic to be here!!  There were so many different kinds of pets with tons and tons of them!  These aren't your 'normal' everyday pet's either.  There were ducks, chickens, roosters, parrots, hamsters, guinea pigs, salamanders, turtles, frogs, puppies, cats, pigeons and so many more. We had a blast playing with the animals.  When they saw us coming with all our kids the salesmen were excited too.  They started opening the cages and handing our kids pets to hold, and taking parrots from their cages to show off their tricks.  I think they had just as much fun as we did.  It was so fun!

Bird seed anyone?!  I can't help but think of Mary Poppins here ... 

Fishing off the bridge

Seeing all the fishing poles from above as they fish from the bridge

The bridge in the distance connects Europe to Asia ... pretty neat!