Steps on Holy Ground: 16,031 steps in Instanbul

Istanbul is a beautiful city!

I went to the Blue Mosque today!

The inside of this mosque is absolutely beautiful. The floor alone has over 20,000 blue ceramic tiles, all of which are decorated and painted colorfully.

This mosque is seriously a masterpiece.

After the Blue Mosque we went to the Topkapi Palace, which is now a museum with cool islamic treasures and relics from various sultans and such.
Then we went underground to the Basilica Cistern (Sunken Palace).
The cistern has 336 columns, walls 13 feet thick, and can hold 2,800,000 ft of water.
Oh . . . From Russia with Love, the James Bond movie, was filmed here. NBD.

This is what the cistern looked like! It was dark inside but each column had a light under it, making the entire space beautiful.

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Then - I had a BAZAAR experience whilst shopping in the

Grand Bazaar of Istanbul.

I bought a rug!

Aint it a beaut!

This is how the purchase went down.
Cheers!

Then, to top off the marvelous day we took a ferry ride across the Bosphorus!
I love ferry rides!
And, I had my first experience with Turkish toilets...squatters? We wont talk about it.
Anywayzzz....
The Bosphorus Strait forms part of the boundary between Asia and Europe!