There are a few food options at the top of Camilica Hill. Try the Turkish pancake, Gozleme. They still make it the traditional way!
Topkapi Palace Harem is one of our favorite among the sites we visited in Istanbul. The harem was home to the sultan’s mother as well as his wives and concubines. The rest of his family, including children and their servants also live in the harem. The harem contains hundreds of intricately decorated apartments.
Grand Bazaar is a lot of fun no matter you like shopping or not. Just be careful not to enter any of the rug stores unless you need to buy one. The salesmen in those stores are so good that they can literally sell you anything. We were warned by some friends about that before hand. Yet we couldn’t help entering one just out of curiosity. Some of us also didn’t believe they could convince us to buy rugs. What would we do with them? They would ‘t fit in our suitcase!
Long story short, 2 hours later, we left the store with 5 rugs purchased and shipped directly to our home addresses. The lesson: don’t enter any rug shop unless you need to buy it!
Not a big fan of the actual bath itself but the experience was interesting and unique. It’s sort of a must-do when you visit Istanbul.
Beautiful rental villa with an open view of the Aegean Sea!
a lovely and colorful lady selling her hand-made jewelry
We took a full-day private boat tour and omg, it was the best decision we made.
Freshly caught and cooked lunch were out of this world.
Our awesome boat crew prepared us another delicious meal as afternoon snack.
A little island in the middle of Bosporus. Beautiful views around sunset time. It’s accessible by a short ferry (free). Used to have a restaurant called 360 Suada Club on the island but closed.