On the eve of a trip 'Up North'!!!

Tomorrow bright and early I will be heading for Luton Airport I am away on a work trip to Glasgow for a week. I can't say I am looking forward to my usual pat down at security, I had better allow myself plenty of time to get through! The strange this is that the flight time to Glasgow is longer than the trip to Amsterdam!

Back to the cruise, the next stop was Istanbul. I had wanted to visit for a while but I was a little worried after a trip we took to Tunis, was very unpleasant. Again we went on an organised trip (mainly because we had on board credit to spend and as our drinks were included what else could we spend it on??)  Coming into Istanbul the weather was overcast and threatened rain. I wasn't sure what to wear, in the end I decided to pop a hoody in my bag and throw caution to the wind and wear a tee shirt. It turned out to be a lovely cool day and we saw all the major sights! Above are some of the Mosques, including the famous Blue Mosque which we later visited. 

Above is a view of part of the Palace. 

Inside the Mosque the decoration was beautiful. Our guide was very informative I hadn't realised that Mosques do not have any depictions of people.Every decoration is pattern based, which I think is why I liked them so much, I am always drawn to a good regular pattern!!

After the Mosque we visited the Hagia Sophia which is now a museum but was formally a Church and a Mosque. 

Because this was a combined Church and Mosque there were both Christian paintings and Muslim patterns and words. It was a really informative tour which ended up with an hour in the bazaar for a spot of shopping.

The Blue Mosque 

Turkey was in the middle of campaigning for a general election. They are into flags in a very big way. Everywhere we went the place was covered with flags, there was one side with Orange and Blue flags and the other side with Red flags. They also had HUGE picture flags, I mean 6ft x4 ft big, strung across the roads and hanging from trees.  It was  lovely to see!

I love all things crafty and on our walk around we came across this tiny little shop which was stuffed with loads of beautiful bits and pieces of jewellery. They made us feel very welcome we went in had a cup of apple  tea and they showed us their wares. There was so much to choose from that I could have spent hours in there! In the end I settled on a beautiful floral bracelet which cost next to nothing!! 

I hope you all have a lovely week and think of me slogging away in Glasgow ;) 

Next stop Katakolon for Olympia !

Here we are arriving at Katakolon in Greece. I had decided that as we were on our own I would have to rely on my trusty selfie stick ! I have already upgraded it to a blue tooth version which is overall much better, the downside is it does sometimes result in 'unwanted' photos of your armpit and shoes when the trigger is accidentally activated!!! Anyway on this morning we were up on deck when  another passenger decided that we should benefit from her photographic expertise, she simply took over and wanted us to pose in all sorts of ways, we were trying to just get one shot. In the end she took around twenty and only around 3 were not shaky or out of focus!!! The look on Toms face says it all!!!

We disembarked and joined our tour visiting the original site of the Olympics. The weather was a bit of a shock, very hot and the site was very dusty! The tour guide was fabulous and told us loads of interesting facts. We had around two hours visiting the ruins which we really enjoyed. At the end we got back on the bus and he took us to a street of shops so we had a look around and took the coach back to the port. When we arrived back there were huge queues to get back on the ship, I think all of the various tours had ended at around the same time. So we started to queue and while waiting another ship docked and in doing so stirred up the water and the smell was awful. For some reason it was too much for me and I had to go and sit down as I felt a bit light headed. A member of staff noticed I was looking rough and came over and got the pair of us back on the ship. Once I was out of the sun and the smell I felt much better. It was quite scary as I have never had that happen before.  

When we left Venice docked alongside was MSC Musica, we only coincided with them in Greece and didn't seen the ship again until we arrived back in Venice.

The next morning we arrived in a very rainy Izmir in Turkey. Another first for me, never been to Turkey before! It was a complete change of weather from the day before which sort of threw us, we were only planning for sunshine!

When we arrived at the port we were bombarded with street vendors, all of them trying to sell us genuine Marc Jacobs  perfume out of a carrier bag, we tried to get by them but they were ten deep trying to flog us all sorts of 'genuine' goods! Once we finally got free we headed into the town and looked around. At one point we had to stand under an awning as the rain was so heavy.

We did find a lovely Turkish delight shop, we were able to try a few samples while we waited for the rain to pass. It was at this point that my phone suddenly sprung into action and realised that it could find a 3g network so I was swamped with messages. I was hoping that my Bank wasn't going to repeat its trick of two years previously when it decided that I had used my debit card in Italy and that was unusual. The annoying thing is I had taken the trouble to tell the Bank we were travelling!! This time I didn't tell them and they didn't notice!!

The one thing we found a little odd was the packs of dogs that roamed the streets , there were loads of them everywhere we looked. They all seemed to get on OK they didn't interfere with passing pedestrians. In the centre of the town there was a park where the dogs all went for food. Apparently the locals feed them and there is a concerted effort to reduce the numbers, so some of the dogs have ear tags that indicate that they have had the snip.

Tomorrow we do Istanbul!! Have a lovely week. Don't work too hard!!