The city is bustling with traffic and strollers along the waterfront and vendors selling roses to stalled traffic. We arrived at the Legacy Ottoman, a gorgeous century old hotel with a lobby of marble, four foot chandeliers, the most amazing collection of carved chairs and sofas I’ve ever laid eyes on, and walls covered with paintings depicting scenes from the Ottoman Empire, located in the bustling heart of old town.
Legacy Ottoman lobby
Lobby or ornate chairs
We opened the windows to our room overlooking an ancient many domed building that seems to function as a shopping mall, a mosque to the left, and a view of the Blue Mosque in the distance.
View to the left of our window
Building directly in front of our windows
The wailing call to prayers that fills the evening air sends chills down my spine. We are in another country.
Our group is small, 19, from all over the world—Australia, South Korea, Canada, and US, and they are quite the world travelers. During dinner on the 6th floor overlooking the bridges crossing the Bosphorous, we listened to tales of trips to Miranmar, Abu Dabi, India, Thailand, Jordan, South America. This is a group of people who like to travel. About ¾ have done Gate 1 tours before and the rest of us are newbies. Interestingly, they often travel independently, but choose to do tours in areas where independent travel would be difficult (the very reason we chose this tour).