Today we're starting on the European side of Turkey, touring the Hadice Sultan Palace and then heading to Asia for dinner. Not that often you can have breakfast on one continent and dinner on another.
The Hadice Sultan Palace housed the last 7 Sultan's until their exile in 1922. We were not allowed to take photos inside but certainly recommend you google the palace and have a look for yourself. The highlight of the interior has to be the grand ballroom which is 6,000 square feet in size and has a 4 1/2 ton chandelier in the middle. The walls and ceiling are all hand painted and the detail amazing. Below are photos of one of the many gates to the palace grounds.
For dinner we headed to the Asian side of Istanbul. John has a favourite restaurant here that in his words serves the best Kabobs anywhere. Last time he was here with Mine, Steve and Leean, they all got to experience this restaurant, but this time there was a little concern when we arrived and found out the restaurant had changed hands 3 weeks ago. All concerns were put to rest though when the food arrive (and arrived and arrived). I'm not sure how many courses we had but we truly had the best meal so far here. Turks are big on meat and vegetables and there was plenty of both. I'm not a big fan of eggplant but had an appetizer of sun dried eggplant stuffed with rice that was to die for. The kabobs of course were fantastic and I also got introduced to a Turkish liquor called Raki. Took a little getting used to but is quite a nice drink with a little punch to it. Spent all the time eating here so the only picture I got was of the sunset over Asia.
Tomorrow is a travel day as we fly from Istanbul to Marmaris on the coast. Won't be blogging tomorrow but will be back in a couple days.
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