Istanbul, day two

We spent the morning of our second day in Istanbul cruising the Bosphorus Strait in a smaller boat. This strait connects the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea and splits Istanbul between Asia and Europe. You can have breakfast in Europe and walk over a bridge and have lunch in Asia!

This is one of the two bridges that connects Asian and European sides of Istanbul.

I do not know if this guy is fishing for a living or just for the joy of catching fish. I hope he caught his limit.

Guys, go over to the Asian side of the Bosphorus the fishes there are suicidal. They'll bite anything you throw at them LOL.

This fort has a rich history but the details escaped me. That's what I get for not paying attention to the endless chatter of  tour guides anywhere I go LOL.  Well,  sometimes I do listen to them, when I personally find the subject interesting.

That's not a weird hat! He is selling bread in his own unique way. I hope he does not trip LOL.

This poor tour bus driver is grabbing a few winks while his passengers are out at sea.

It is too far in the background but if you enlarge the pic, you'll recognize the pay toilet, a common predatory animal abroad. Now that I think about it, I still have to run into a pay toilet here in the US of A. Lucky me! I'm not against paying, I just don't feel comfortable when there is an unsmilling attendant sitting at the entrance eyeing everyone that comes in.

It's not the kind of Turkish delight I had in mind.

Spice bazaar

He's an itinerant hot tea vendor in colorful uniform.

Istanbul, Turkey

After a couple of nights and a full day at sea, we arrived at Istanbul, a city I'm visiting for the first time. I really wanted to do a 12 day land tour of Turkey instead of this cruise but my wife and other frequent travel companions convinced me that it is better to just go on a cruise because it is less physically demanding than a land tour. I know how unpleasant it is to pack and unpack every day and sit on a bus for long hours but you see a lot more of the places you are visiting. I think I'll try solo travel again - it is so liberating and free from the constraint of conveniences.

I've never tried the juice of this fruit yet but I will.

I like seeing the locals in their native dress.

Bread cart open for business





 

An ice cold slice of watermelon on a hot day was a childhood delight.

Roasted corn fresh from the grill is a  hard to beat street food for me.

Inside one of the mosques we visited

Looks yummy!
          

                   

That's my wife leading the way to a souvenir shop!

  

Bosphorus Strait connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and splits Turkey between Asia and Europe.

                                     

Our lunch stop

One of the entrances to the Grand Bazaar

This guy was quick enough to pull his cart out of the way of the ambulance. I wonder why vendors are allowed to ply their trade in this narrow street.

Night shot from our ship

Our ship stayed for two days at this particular stop.

Athens, Greece

Our ship lifted anchor at Santorini about 10 pm and headed on to Piraeus, Athen's main port and one of the most important in the Mediterranean. We got there at 7 am after a leisurely cruise of 123 miles. We booked one of the ship's shore excursions for this stop. As is usually the case, ship sponsored land excursions are always expensive, the groups are often too large and at the end of each tour, you always feel that you missed something that you shouldn't for the money that you paid for.

We never learn our lesson, we just keep doing it time and again LOL. Part of the reason is we just do not want to be bothered searching for better alternatives. It is just so mindlessly easy to book a ship shore excursion and have the assurance that the ship will not sail until their excursionists are back on board.

 

On our way to the Parthenon, I saw some workers at a distance doing some clean-up work. I zoomed at the group with my point and shoot camera.

The result could be better but I'm happy with the 10X zoom of my pocket camera. Mababaw ang kaligayan ko, photographically speaking LOL.

The Parthenon undergoing some cosmetic (?) work.

I do not know what this is or why I'm here.

I was told this is a significant ruin but if this was in my neighborhood the local powers-that-be will say it is an urban blight and ought to be demolished and replaced with an income generating nonsense.

Everybody was looking and I looked, too, but I do not know what we were supposed to look at, so I just took a picture of them looking and what I thought they were looking at.

I'm glad we arrived before the tourist horde started coming. It was a mess here and I do not know how the parking lot we left behind or what passed for one, looked like. Our bus driver just told us to bail out quickly when we arrived and he'll pick us up at the arranged time and place, give or take a few minutes. Amazingly, we found our bus or the bus driver found us amidst the chaos - a near miracle without a gps or a cell phone.

Street parking Athens-style, any which way you can LOL.

The Panathenaic Stadium, I think.

We're headed to that ruin (like I care) atop that distant hill. After seeing so many ruins and archeological sites in many countries we've visited over the years, I'm getting an overload of them. I'd rather see other things even if they are less historically significant or famous.

I thought taking a pic of this mailbox is a pleasant change from all those ruins.

The glory of the past behind the beauty of the present.

At last we are heading down to the bus and back to the boat! I need a drink!

Time Out

On a quickie trip to Vegas, I saw this stack of cash in one of the hotel casinos. I had to take a pic! This is as closed as I am going to get to a million dollar cold cash in easily spendable hundred dollar bills. Given the "walk away" inflation of our time though, this is really not much money - a nice tract home with a view in Southern California, a fancy foreign car, a few trips abroad and all you would be left with is just enough cash to buy yourself a drink or two at your favorite bar and, if you luckily drop in during happy hour you'll stlll have a few bills left for the bartender. LOL.



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I'm glad I kept the lifestyle, food and clothing preferences of my struggling college days (as in struggling for good grades and a more generous school allowance) to this day. I don't have to worry about money or lack of it because my enjoyment of life would not change drastically, either way.

Santorini, Greece

Our first port of call was Santorini, an island we already visited in 2003. Other than finding out changes that occured between then and now, I really did not feel like going ashore - I just wanted to hang out at the poolside bar, relax, eat and sleep. None of these happened. I found myself at the dock with my wife and travel companions enduring the heat, humidity and the long line to ride the cable car.

As soon as I saw there were several other cruise ships at port, I know it is going to be a mess dockside. It is hard to quickly disperse arriving cruisers to all points in the island where the only convenient venues are a cable car, a donkey ride or your leg power for an uphill climb to town.

It took us an hour lined up under the sun to get a cable car ride!

More cruisers are coming in to invade Santorini!

Cable car is the preferred way unless you want to walk or ride a donkey along a smelly route to the top.

My wife never fails to say a prayer whenever she run into a church anywhere in the world.

It is not clear in the pic but there is a long line of people in the background ready to take the cable car back to the dock.

Self-portrait

That's real grass there! When the sun calls it a day, you can lay on the grass with a bottle of your favorite wine and a selection of cheese and assorted fruits and listen to live music while you watch the sunset and wait for the stars to show up. Unfortunately, I associate grass with the unpleasant task of mowing our lawn at home and none of this decadent lifestyle LOL.

I took four shots and this is the best one of the lot. Tell me I do not need to go back and reshoot LOL.