TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

Fatih is the historical old centre of Istanbul. This is where you will see the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Mosque), the Hagia Sofia , the Basilica Cistern aka the Sunken Palace, the Topkapi Palace and the markets – the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar . These are random photos I took while going around in Fatih. The daily life in Istanbul... The Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Mosque). Hagia Sofia (Aya Sofya). Tulips originally come from Turkey (then Ottoman Empire) and was brought to the Netherlands in the late 16th century, however it was the Netherlands that made the flower great and famous, and even became one of the symbols of the kingdom. Hagia Sofia (Aya Sofya) from Sultan Ahmet Park. On Divan Yulo Cadesi, the main street and tramway of Fatih. No worries my dear friend, you can buy some relax tea, Turkish viagra tea, love tea and even cholesterol tea in Istanbul =) Outdoor terraces are everywhere in the old historical centre especi...

Have any of you read Dan Brown’s latest book – Inferno? Unfortunately, I have only read the book a month later after having visited Istanbul and the Basilica Cistern. However, it did not really matter because whilst reading the book, I could vividly picture every scene in the book, giving so much depth and reading pleasure. I was there when Sienna Brooks and Robert Langdon crawled the underwater cistern. But I also enjoyed the pursuit scenes in Florence, a place that I have been longing to go back. The queues to the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sarayi) are quite long, but nonetheless it is moving slowly at intervals. The reason for the interval wait is for safety and managing judiciously the flow of people going in and out of the cistern. This means they only allow a certain number of people to go in every 15 minutes or so. The cathedral-size subterannean structure was built by the Byzantine Emperor Justininan I to provide a water filtration system for the Great Palace of Con...