Christmas holidays in Istanbul
Spending the Christmas holidays in Istanbul has become a well-established tradition for me. I love this city, its unpredictable weather, the wind from the strait and the cries of seagulls... I love to anticipate the joy of meeting my long-term friend, walking along the narrow alleys of the old quarters, incessant tea drinking at almost every step, conversations from night to morning, outings and hiking around the city and its environs... However, everything is in order.
Lyrica is like a garden, and its lush flowering is preceded by the cultivation of the soil and the creation of favorable conditions. I took a ticket for an Aeroflot flight for quite prosaic reasons: a fare of about 10.000 rubles on vacation dates is a good fare. Here I must immediately warn you: the quality of Aeroflot standard food (on these flights. I heard that everything is fine on others, but now we are talking about the Moscow-Istanbul-Moscow route) entails inevitable consequences, so I recommend ordering kosher immediately when booking tickets nutrition. And the point is not that I am a tour operator in Israel, and not even that kosher food is somehow special: it is ordinary, but it is guaranteed to be fresh.
The next step after taking care of daily bread is a shelter for wanderers. This year we chose the SED, 3* hotel, located not far from the Kabatas pier. It is very convenient: you can take a ferry, cross the strait and find yourself on the Asian side of the city, walk through the fish market, dine in a fish (or any other - as you like) restaurant, or you can ride to the Princes' Islands and spend a wonderful day on one of them. The hotel itself is small, very comfortable, good for tourists who love independent walking tours. Those who use a laptop will find it convenient that the photos taken during these walks can be uploaded to the Internet - free Wi-Fi works everywhere, including in the rooms.
In addition, from Kabatas, it is a stone's throw to Taksim Square and the pedestrian Istiklal Avenue. However, it is only relatively pedestrian, since a tram runs along it - a copy of the historical one that went here before, cars were forbidden to enter this zone.
A trip to the Church of the Virgin of Blachernae on Christmas Day is also one of our traditions. The temple with a loud and glorious history is small, but bright; the holiness of the place is felt with all the depths of the soul, as in the temples of Jerusalem. Prayer. . . Candles. . . From under the strict church vaults we go out into the sunny garden. Merry Christmas! . .
. . . One day we went to the Islands - or rather, to one of them: Bolshoy. Once Trotsky lived here in exile, but, of course, few people remember this now. People (including us) come here to relax from the city. No matter how much Istanbul is loved, the bustle will drive everyone crazy, so we go here to go crazy in a different way: from each other, from silence, from an unexpectedly warm day, from an orange tree near an old wooden house (oranges - in January! ) , because there are almost no cars here, but there is a cab yard, and phaetons... These phaetons are the main island transport, and cab drivers, waiting for riders, "kimar on irradiations" like Rosenbaum's. And, of course, famous cats. The islands, in fact, are more catlike than princely: the princes here are mustachioed and tailed, of conceivable and unimaginable colors (in the photo I have a cat of an unthinkable color in my hands).
Everything in the world comes to an end - so our holidays are over. It's time to leave, and the heart is full of sadness, but it does not last long - after all, you always return to those places where you want to return, and after separation, a meeting inevitably comes. For me, Istanbul was such a place...
