As you said, it's not surprising that you pick out the most expensive stuff - it generally the most intricate and the most interesting. A little odd that they would be making cloth in kimono width, but with the two Japanese in the store they might just be catering to the market.
I wonder what the idea was behind setting up the shops in the hippodrome?
Definitely sounds like staying away from the rallies would be a good idea!
Yet another enjoyable day was had. The temperature was coolish there was no rain threatening - in my view a perfect day. This morning I decided to book for the tour on Monday but it wasn't available.
ReplyDeleteI went to the grand palace mosaic again and bought some books. I then went to aya Sophia again. It is good having the museum card as you can get to the front of the queue - which was rather long. Despite the queue there were not absolute hordes there. Then I spent a considerable amount of time trying to find the spice bazaar which was absolutely packed. On the way I visited an exhibition of the Dardanelles war from a Turkish perspective. It was very well done and had a fair bit about the sea battles. I finally found the rustem pasa mosque and visited it (it has the best collection of tiles of any mosque).
I came home then visited Heather and had a lovely talk. And thus ended a nice day. In the process I went to two tourist information centres and worked out how to get to where I want to go tomorrow. I plan to visit the yildiz palace (including the porcelain museum and hopefully the city museum), rumell fortress (built by the turks against the Byzantines), and the beyerbeyi palace (Susan suggested it - at least it is a single entity this time.
Heather's walking tour today covered the locations I will be going tomorrow so I might try some things she did.