I was up at 7:30 this morning and at breakfast for 8:15. The view from the rooftop breakfast area is really beautiful. I counted at least 9 mosques in sight. Steve, Karen and I sat outside and I made a sandwich from the usual ingredients laid out - cucumber, tomato, cheese, and meat of some sort. The bread was really fresh. There were also olives, watermelon, and boiled eggs for breakfast which was yum. My stomach was feeling better. I could tell by how hungry I was.
At 9:30 the group went for a walk. We all unintentionally wore blue and white ha. First we walked through the little bazaar and then came out by the Macedonian Tower, which you can no longer go up, but it's situated next to some Roman era ruins. Next to there was some hamams or traditional Turkish baths. We got to go in and check it out. The women and men have separate entrances. The front part looked a little sketchy, but once past that there were beautiful marble steam and bath rooms.
Across the street from the baths was one of many mosques. We went in and checked it out. It was beautiful. We had to appropriately cover ourselves of course. From there we made our way up to the Selimiye Mosque - built in the late 1500's and considered a high achievement in Islamic architecture.
Towards the back of mosque once you exit, we came across some more hamams and got another tour. They looked a bitbetter than the first one. As we were exiting we walked past a fake cemetery depicting an ottomam cemetery, I think, and a man with a cart of dates all nicely lined up went past us. Steve stopped him and bought some and then everyone else followed suit. They were very delicious dates.
We made our way back down towards our hotel, walking past many shops selling everything from electronics, Turkish delight, baklava, and spices and nuts. From there Karen, Steve and I went back to the bazaar to take a better look. I bought a banana from a stall on the other side at a rip off price, but I really wanted it.
On our way back to the hotel we kept our eye out for wine for happy hour. Since it is Ramadan it is difficult to buy alcohol. We did find some white Turkish wine however at a little window store. We paid 10 Lyra for it which is equivalent to 5 dollars-ish. We made a pit stop at the hotel to put the wine in the fridge to cool in time for 6.
Around the corner from the hotel was a little donair shop that a lot of locals seemed to be eating at so we plopped ourselves at a mini table in the street and had lunch there. We went for a little walk down to the bridges that we could see on the map, but apparently we didn't make it to the bridges we saw on the map, but close enough. We walked through a very local non-touristy area to get there and not many people were around. Kids were chasing us asking for money and we passed a fountain that many of them were swimming in. We also saw an old man carrying home some dead chickens. On the bridge a man was fishing so we stopped and took a look at his catch. He had 3 pretty decent sized fish hanging in a bag off his motorcycle. There was another big mosque on the other side of the bridge but we decided to turn around.
On the way back we took a slightly different route to go and but some nuts from a shop we had passed earlier. We also ended up going into a store selling Turkish delight and the lady wouldn't stop giving us free samples. We bought some from her and then she continued to give us more free stuff. She was a very nice lady.
On the way back to the hotel again we stopped at the supermarket and got some bananas and stuff. I went back out and found a place selling olives and got some green and black ones for happy hour. After that I just hung around the hotel until 6 - sat on a bench in the sun across the hotel and blogged.
Everyone showed up for happy hour and everyone had goodies to contribute too. We ended up with a lot of food. So much so that we ended up cancelling going out for dinner. We did have to make another run to the store to buy more wine and beer however. It turned out to be a really fun and relaxing evening!
Fountain:
Bazaar:
Bath entrance:
Mosque:
Second mosque:
Date man:
Street shoe polisher:
Street sign:
Baklava shop:
Bringing home the chicken:
Breakfast view:
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