Day 3- Istanbul

Today was a lonnnggg tiring day, right now I feel like I'm 80 years old I guess my mum is at least 120 :) In the morning we went to Topkapi palace which is a steep walk upwards. The palace is surrounded by beautiful gardens, a total of four courtyards wiih many seperate buildings.

Each builging has intricate doors, glass and lead windows, amazing tiles, painted ceilings, mother of pearl inladed windows and closets and beautiful fireplaces. Each room has different details, the amount of hours, years of work must have been huge, but the overall feeling was cozy, unlike some palaces you could imagine yourself living in it.

I loved this gilded cage for the window of the Sultan.

The gardens look out to the sea, we has cold but sunny weather, it must be even more wonderful when the weather is warm.

The gardens are very well kept and even though it was swarming with people, not one piece of trash could be seen. The flowers smelt amazing which gave a wonderful Spring feeling even though it is much colder than usual for this time of year.

I hand picked just a few pictures of the many I took, I did not want to bore you with the huge amount f pictures :)

After the palace we met with another Etsy friend, Akif, owner of TeomanDesign, who kindly showed us around to some great addresses to buy silver supplies. We were busy for a few hours choosing beautiful sterling silver beads and supplies until our wallets were empty. We also went to the grand bazaar, the surrounding of Hagia Sophia, Sultan Ahmet and many more streets. No wonder we are feeling so old... :) I will show pictures of those places tomorrow.