Istanbul City - A Bewitching Belly Dancer

        Istanbul-A place that witnessed the dawns and dusks of many powerful empires. This time picment's travel was to one of the world's largest cities that lies on two continents, Asia and Europe which is none other than the majestic Istanbul with a population of 15.52 million which is currently governed by the Ataturks. The love for Turkey originated to me from the Dan Brown book Inferno as well as from the 'Snow' by Orhan Pamuk. Another reason for choosing Istanbul was it's vicinity to Europe and therefore extremely economic travel cost.

     We chose February for our travel neglecting all the odds that would arise including that it was winter month and therefore off season when it could snow or rain at anytime and thereby cause our plan to become haywire. But the four of us, my husband and I from Ireland, Gireesh and Anu from UK, tired by the normalcy of daily life were determined that we would set out to the beautiful shore of Istanbul despite all the hurdles. 

       It was a five days trip and the travel package included transfers to and from Istanbul airport. E-visa could be availed as we were all Indian citizens living in Europe and UK. The flight was through Frankfurt airport, Germany which has an international transit area. Our stay was in a hotel called Romantic in the Sultanhmet street of Istanbul from where the view of a brick red sun sinking behind the Bosphorous bay mesmerized us. Seagulls clamoured and flew across the blue skies. Weather was unusually pleasant during our visit.

            Our package included tours to the major historic monuments including Hagia Sofia, blue mosque, basilica cistern, palace of Sultan Ahmed, beylerbe palace, cruise on a luxury boat across Bosphorous bay and dinner with people from all over the world on a cruise boat enjoying traditional Sufi dance, belly dance and much more entertainments. Turkey is a muslim majority nation and therefore we would see thousands of mosques across Istanbul. All the monuments in Istanbul tell the tale of a wealthy and powerful past of that place through out the reign of two majestic empires, the Byzantine and ottoman empires.

           Turkish cuisine is very unique and exotic, which stimulates the taste buds with sweet, sour, bitter and salty tastes and thousands of flavours. We tried everything including the free Turkish tea and sweets after food in restaurants, kebabs, grilled fish, Turkish coffee, roasted chestnuts, Turkish breads etc. Some restaurants helped us learn a lesson that before popping in to a restaurant to dine one should check it's review in Google so that we might be able to prevent betrayals and frauds in bills from happening. 

          During our return home, the packed and much historic European side and the green Asian side of Istanbul on  opposite shores of Bosphorous lingered in my heart. Istanbul yes, she is a bewitching belly dancer, beaming in the evening sun hypnotizing who ever looks at her, flaunting her beautiful curves. I would recommend Istanbul to all the vagabonds in love with travel. This is one of the most economic places where one can choose for an international travel.