City of contrasts

First day in Istanbul.

Crazy this 15 million city.

Today I walked along the Bosphorus to the ferry docks. Once I arrived there, I booked a 90-minute boat tour. It's just indescribable. One must experience this city for themselves. Poverty and luxury so close together. Along the Bosphorus shore, which is secured with boulders, some homeless people have built some modest shelters from rocks. On the other side, luxury hotels, real luxury that I only know from TV. The rich and the "beautiful" present themselves here to passing tourist ships 🤢. I can't do much with that.

I found the Turkish flags, almost the size of a football field, fascinating, how majestic they moved in the wind, that has something to it. I don't know what is more frequent here, minarets or Turkish flags?

I was also fascinated by the sound on the water, enormous ship traffic and ship horns in all tones. It reminds me of old movies from the Port of Hamburg.

From the water, you can see a lot of modern Istanbul, but also a lot of historical sites. Luxury and poverty, simple fishermen and oligarchs' yachts. The contrasts are impressive.

After the boat trip, I tried to find my way back to the hotel, which I eventually managed with the help of Google (of course, I got lost a little before that🤣).

I rested a little, then went back to the Bosphorus promenade, found a nice spot, and simply watched people and cats.

Istanbul seems to be a city of cats. And there are people who take care of them, providing feeding places and setting up small cardboard shelters as protection from the weather.

The annoying part is all the doormen who try to sell their goods or try to explain that their restaurant is the best 😅.

Tomorrow I will first dry my tent, I have arranged with the landlord that I can spread it out on the rooftop terrace after breakfast time. After that, I will try to get to the Asian part of the city.

I have extended my stay at the hotel until Friday, so I can continue exploring the city at my own pace.