Istanbul
Deb arrived!  July 1, Hannah and I bid Izmit, Mom and our friends "Gule, gule!" (goodye!) again, and hopped a bus to Istanbul.  We got from the bus to the ferry, from the ferry to the tram, from the tram to the metro, from the metro to the airport, with 15 minutes to spare picking Deb up at international arrivals.  Then it was the reverse of everything to get back to our Istanbul home base: Sultanahmet. 

It's very easy to use the public transit.  There are maps everywhere, and people are happy to help.  It's a good thing, because pretty much everything is written in either Turkish or French!

We're staying at Agora Boutique Hotel and Bistro, located a couple blocks from the back side of the Blue Mosque, on the Maramara Sea side.

It recently went through an ownership change, and a complete remodel, so it's more fancy than what I read at rating sites.  We got a double private room, with it's own bathroom.  We're on the third floor, and the view of the Maramara Sea out one window and Blue Mosque out the other is perfect.  They have a backup generator, so we have power in the evening when it goes out everywhere else because of air conditioners overloading the system.  They also have a nice rooftop to eat breakfast on in the morning and watch the sun set at night.  The owner plans to make it into a bistro for dinner at some point. 

The Bosphorus

July 2, we cruised the Bosphorus Strait from Istanbul to Anadolu Kavagi on the Black Sea.  There is a lot of information online about the cruise itself, and we enjoyed it quite a bit, but I didn't read anything about Yoros Kalesi (castle ruins) you can hike to, and that was fabulous!  It was a hot, steep climb, and very worth it.

 
       

Anadolu Kavagi, Yoros Kalesi and the Black Sea (while drinking tea!)...