Cats, souvenirs and mosques - a taste of Istanbul tourism

Yes, I’m back from Istanbul. Been back a week, actually, but wow how time gets away from me! It was such a long week, so much happened, and yet it flew by.

So, this was my first time staying in the tourist district of Istanbul. We stayed in the shadow of the Blue Mosque. I steadfastly continued to refuse to do touristy things, and did not enter any museums or the like. We were going to visit a museum set up by brilliant novelist Orhan Pamuk, named after his novel Museum of Innocence, but when we discovered that either we had to pay a rather costly entry fee or else buy the book, it seemed a little bit too commercial to our liking. So we wandered, hung out, drank coffee, and shopped. And enjoyed the view of the Blue Mosque in one direction and the Sea of Marmaris in the other, from the rooftop of our hotel.

Turkish souvenirs are fantastic. Colourful, good quality, reasonable prices, creative and happy. There were bowls and dishes, lamps to your heart’s content (one of which now adorns my bedroom ceiling), scarves and bags, sweets and more. Everything looks so glimmery in the shop windows, that I was afraid to enter many of the stores out of fear of breaking something. So I was rather taken aback when I saw this in one of the shops:

yes, that’s a real cat.

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