09 - 15 October 2020: Istanbul (Turkey)

We have heard a lot about Istanbul, including warnings about the wild traffic. That's why we set off extra early and hope to get to Turkey faster at the small border crossing in Malko Tarnovo than on the highway. But here too we stand for a while between barbed wire fences, walls, and ditches patrolled by heavily armed border soldiers. The European external border is of course heavily secured even in remote areas like this. We have to unpack our luggage packed with Tetris professionalism so that it can be scanned and packed again. All this takes more time than planned and we only reach the first skyscrapers in Istanbul in the late afternoon. It gets dark, starts raining, and on the first evening we have the most intense experience of the city's traffic: for two hours we struggle between pushy luxury cars and honking trucks with wild overtaking maneuvers on the city highways and confusing alleyways through rush hour traffic. In the end, however, we manage to reach our destination without an accident (Hallelujah!).

Since the children were allowed to help us search for accommodation, we end up not in Kadikoy as recommended, but in a 'Luxus-Hotel' in Beyoglu with a view of the Galata Tower and the Golden Horn. This is the perfect starting point for our city explorations: we cross the Golden Horn to Sultanahmet, visit the Blue Mosque there (which is unfortunately currently under renovation and we can only see glimpses of the fantastic ornaments) and stroll through the park of the Topkapi Palace.

Of course, we also visit the Hagia Sophia, which unfortunately has not been a museum since July and is now being used as a mosque again after a decision by Erdogan. For almost a thousand years, it was the coronation church of the Byzantine emperors, until it became the main mosque of the Ottomans after the conquest in 1453. The wall paintings and testimonies of Christian history were covered with plaster at that time, which was only removed in 1934 on the initiative of Ataturk, and the Hagia Sophia became a museum. Today, scaffolding again stands in front of the walls, wooden paneling covers the paintings, and even though this place is still impressively beautiful, there remains a bitter aftertaste.

But there are many opportunities to wash away this aftertaste in countless nice cafes with a glass of Turkish tea, and so we let ourselves be carried away further by this vibrant city: taking the ferry across the Bosphorus to Kadikoy on the Asian side, strolling through the alleyways where you can find different shops for each trade: the lamp street leads to the craftsmanship street, parallel to it runs the shoe street, elsewhere there is fresh fish, fruit and vegetables, spices: a whole fireworks display of impressions.

Understandably, the children are less enthusiastic about days of city strolling than we are, but the Lüxüs hotel pays off: while we relax in the hammam and sauna in the afternoon, they let off steam in the gym and pool and then happily fall onto the couch in their bathrobes (white and cozy!) and are more than happy to let us leave them in the hotel with a few movies, so that we can go out alone: this way we can also enjoy an exhibition, stroll through small shops, and eat delicious mezze in a more relaxed manner.

The departure is approaching much too quickly and we decide to stay a little longer here as well because there is still so much more to discover. But even in just a week, we can only get first impressions, but they are so intense that we will cherish them for a long time and hopefully come back for a second time.

We will let all of this sink in at our next destination: we have decided to chase summer in the south for a few more days, so now we are crossing the Bosphorus Bridge around noon in sunny weather, passing various skyscrapers towards the Aegean Sea.