This is a business trip, but fortunately I had an opportunity to be in the right place at the right time. Tim invited me to a bar located at the roof of a hotel, exactly when day and nigh were changing their shifts.
Nobody can tell to have seen Bosphorus, when he didn't saw its bridges. Both of them are engineering masterpieces.
When I was excited by general Istanbul views, Tim was focused at mundane things. Taxim district offers a lot of restaurants, and Tim seems to be the perfect guide to all of them.
On the next day the weather was even more dull and unfriendly to a photographer. The only solution was to go indoors and find something interesting lighted by an artifical, more vivid light.
After three days my task was completed and one day remained before my flight back home. Nice opportunity, but how to see a 12-million city with 2500 years of history at one day? This is just impossible. We tried to do it however. First step was cruising the Bosphorus.
The straight was crowded with ferries and cruise ships.
Old and new.
Four Seasons Hotel seems to be rather expencive, ... but watching it was for free.
This was my first visit in mosque. Fortunately I had an opportunity to hear the guide, who was telling to his group; that empty space in the center allows to be closer to Absolute. The circles of light are symbols of enlightment by God.
Hagia Sophia is another story. I didn't know anything about Istambul except that there is Hagia Sophia there. The biggest, the oldest, the most important. In other words, Hagia Sophia is just a "must see"!
A little bit ruined but under slow reconstruction. Hagia Sophia has been the mosque for a thousand years, but Christian mosaics were neither removed nor intentionally destroyed.
I saw Hagia Sophia, it means I was in Istambul.