Day 3. Friday 3 April

Breakfast in the hotel offered some highlights to start the day: a Korean girl insouciant in pink flannies and hotel slip ons, a great variety of food…but tea (long life milk) and brewed coffee both ordinary.

Once again, impressed with the European countries’ Metro using system. Our ‘home’ station is Levent and we can go pretty much everywhere using rail or tram  using a ticket giving three rides per tix for 175 TL –  a bit under $2 per ride with no senior discount.

There was some learning. We headed for the Blue Mosque area, which involved a train ride to Lateline/ University station, then a tram ride to Sultanahmet. Here we met our first ‘Istanbul cat’ reclining on a station massage chair.

Wandered through alley ways looking for a coffee, finally making a decision: just too much choice. T had a cappuccino, D an americano, both weak but hot, complemented by sweet treats (as if we needed refuelling!). As we departed the cafe owner engaged D in talk, proudly remembering a visit by John Howard in April many years ago, where, as a teenager, he sold post cards to the entourage.

Wandered through a bazaar near the Mosaic Museum, being touted by ticket sellers for boat tours: ‘Where are you from?’ The answer often prompted a response: ‘I love the Ozzie accent’ or ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…Oi, Oi, Oi’

Our stroll took us through a peaceful part of the city – the Guilhane Gardens with no crowds…tulip beds, birds – Mesopotamian crows (black & grey, very handsome), rose-ringed parakeets, and grey herons roosting in the trees.

We came out on the waterfront. Old guys, seemingly arrived on motor scooters, fishing using a tiny hook and lure rather than bait, and regularly catching small fish – even sharing the occasional sprats with cats!

Istanbul is famous for its cats, looked after but not owned by the inhabitants (what cat is ever ‘owned’ by a human anyway?). As well as kiosks where passersby could put in a coin, of any currency, to donate food, there were plastic cat apartments, complete with bedding.

Opted for a two hour cruise on a small boat – about a dozen passengers. Tourists are captive ‘ATM’s:  there was an exotic parrot, performing tricks, available for photographs. We just clicked our own from above deck.

We shared the top deck with a couple of Aussie blokes – childhood friends from primary school in Brisbane, one now living in Stockholm – and a miserable young man who coughed, sneezed and blew his runny nose the whole time. We were grateful for the sea breeze!

It was a terrific way to do the familiarisation tour, seeing the European skyline with towers on one side versus the lower skyline on the Asian side at about three storeys.

Being Good Friday, it seemed appropriate to go into a church, so in late afternoon we queued (short) for the Blue Mosque. With Hundreds of others, shoeless, the space is still a wonder, and we were able to eavesdrop surreptitiously on a few ‘Muslim information guides’.

Return trip on the tramway and metro was a crush (T recalled some disturbing experiences from 25 years ago on the same tram line). Not really surprising,  as Istanbul’s population is, according to our Uber driver, 25 million – same as Australia.

A bit of essentials shopping: a bottle of red, milk for morning tea, Brie and leftover dolmades for dinner.

We noted that, like most European countries we have visited, there is a very stylish dress sense. The fashion now is wide leg pants(no skinnies in sight), little jackets, big (enhanced) lips, serious makeup…little sign from trips decades ago of women covered over in long brown coats, common, nor were there packs of young men hassling passing foreign women.Plenty of stylish hijabs.