Turkey Travelog – Part 3 – Photo Essay
TweetHappy new year everyone. This is my first post of the year on this blog.
Hope you all are enjoying Priya Raju’s updates in her inimitable style. In case you missed, here is part2 of this series. I got delayed with my photo essay, sorry about that.
Our tour in started at the Hagia Sophia. You should read Priya’s description of it.
Next, the incomparable Blue mosque (Sultanahmet), considered to be the pinnacle of architectural accomplishment of the Ottomans.
The Grand Bazaar – it did trap us tourists 🙂
We loved eating the Mezze Platter at the roadside eateries. Here is Priya Raju glancing at the Menu to pick out Mezze Platter for the Nth time 🙂
The Dondurma from Mado beats any ice cream in the world, including my prior best Italian Gelato from Rome. I never put Orchid and Juice together before 🙂 Here is self enjoying Sahlep – the delicious drink made from Orchids at a Mado store in the Cevahir Mall.
The next picture has the oldest object in Istanbul. The description of the monument follows in the next picture.
Battle of Platea changed the history of Europe forever. The technologically minded may be able to notice the qrcode in one corner of the next picture.
The reason for the Blue in the Blue Mosque can be seen in the next picture. Cameras, especially wielded by incompetent photographers like me, can never capture the beauty of Sultan Ahmet’s interior. Nevertheless, here it is:
Next up you can see the grill using which the Sultan eavesdropped on his ministers in the Topkapi Palace (Priya will explain this in her next post).
Spectacular view of the Istanbul skyline taken from the Cafe at Topkapi – well worth the 17 Lira they charged per cup of coffee against the usual 3 Lira 🙂
Priya Raju, the Crow Lover, will beat with me a stick if i don’t include a picture of a Crow. Just kidding 🙂 We thought the Turkish Crow looked kind of different.
Sun set on the Bosphorus from the Bosphorus cruise.
Priya and I were curious how the Sultan “did” his thing at the Topkapi. In case you have similar levels of curiosity 🙂
I believe that Indus (IVC) symbols like the “unicorn” and “swastika” spread all over the ancient world. Here is an example of “unicorn” from the Istanbul Museum.
We went to Cappadoccia next. The ancients had built more than 100 underground cities where they would hide to escape invaders. One of them is below – a circular door to close the entrance from the inside to protect themselves, they had carved the door also from the same material that forms the city, built by carving into the volcanic rock which is softer than regular rock. One of the most amazing things i have seen. It took them decades/centuries of work to manually carve and create these underground cities.
If you all liked my photo essay, i can do one more with the unique landscape of Cappadoccia as seen from a hot air balloon (one of my life’s all time great experiences) and a photosynth of Istanbul as seen from the Galatta Tower. What say?
In the meantime, this here is the next post in this series.
Very nice,
did u try some coffee reading session ?
I doubt its better than gelato…Is it? Have u tried gelato in Italy? (or paris)?
Great photo blog Sukumar…
Orchid Juice ! reminds me of our native Arugam pul juice !!!
I liked Cappadoccia the best of all and definitely look forward to know more on the same in your next photo blog
ABSOLUTELY! More photographs please!!
Thanks Ashutosh. Don’t know what you mean by coffee reading session? We did try Turkish Coffee several times. I liked it a lot. As I said in the post, I have tried Gelata in Rome (Italy).
Thanks for the kind words Kavitha. Hmm arugam pul juice. Good one. I hadn’t thought of that.
Priya may write some more on the underground cities.
Thanks Surya.
Sukumar – Nice selection of pics. BTW, its a species of crow known as the “Hooded Crow”. We saw them in Egypt too.
nice one…if you are going to do a lot interesting travel like these (not the business tours :)), I do like to see more pics 🙂
you can try to include a gallery showing off other pics…try this if you are interested – http://visuallightbox.com/
Thanks Priya. Now that you mention it, I remember. It completely slipped my mind that we saw the “hooded crow” there also.
Thanks Rajesh. I don’t think I shoot photos that are good enough to be put in a gallery. Thanks I’ll check it out.
Nice pictures Sukumar. Good narration too – enjoyed reading it.
Dear Sir,
Very Nice picutures and good description of the pictures.
I enjoyed seeing these pics and looking forward to more postings.
Regards
Venky
Nice travel blog series Sukumar. I read all 3 of them all are as usual great and thanks for sharing it.The photos captured really the cross over of Turkey’s unique Europe to Asia.
-Subba
Thanks Hill. Glad you liked it.
Thanks for the kind words Subba.
Thanks for the kind words Venkatesh.
Nice post. I think you should tie-up with each of these tourism boards and get a comission. 🙂
I pronounce you guilty of crime of inducing the temptation to travel. 🙂
Thanks for the kind words Kumaran. I’ll get cracking on the commission idea. Good one. Maybe I can retire on that new income stream 🙂
Nice visual treat !!
Thnx.
Enjoyed reading and nice pictures too.
Great job Sukumar & Priya. I recommend you try out a product like Windows Live Movie Maker to do a photos based video that you could share on youtube. You can introduce the sounds of the place in such a movie that would capture the ambience.
A coffee table book in the offing?
Cheers
krish
Thanks for the kind words Krish. Interesting idea. Priya does the writing part and I do the windows movie maker part. Priya, deal?
Nice photos Sukumar it is a good pictorial representation of Priya’s writeup