A weekend in Ortaköy

I've lived here now for six months and I've finally located one of my favourite areas in Istanbul! For the Australian viewers of my blog, If you can imagine Darling harbor, in Sydney, with perhaps an additional one thousand years of history, and a few more hundred thousand people in the local vicinity then you're pretty close to imagining what Ortaköy is like!

The picture on the left depicts the area of Ortaköy with the Ortaköy Mosque (Camii) in the background. The big guy dominating the foreground of the picture is none other than myself!

If you look close enough, flanked on the right side of the Cami is a tourist boat that takes you on the Bosphrous Sea for one hour tour at a rate of 4YTL (i.e. AUD$4.00). It's fantastic value, enabling you to come to terms with the immense geography of Istanbul both on the European and Asian sides of the country. I can highly recommend the tour! We were lucky enough to see a school of dolphins playing in the bow wave of the ship during the journey.

Both Saturday (Cumartesi) and Sunday (Pazar) host the local markets which you can immerse yourself in for hours at a time. The local produce is fascinating, and very reasonably priced Jewelryery and fashion accessories seem to be the dominating produce with negotiation a must.

My newest pair of Georgio Armani sunglasses set me back a whopping 15YTL (that's only AUD$15). Compared to my originals, you can not detect any difference! Diesel belts ($15.00), earrings (from $1.00), necklaces ($5.00 - $15.00, high quality female dress skirts ($30.00), shirts ($5.00 +) and several coffees and chais later we were exhausted!

With too much shopping to cram into one day, we returned on Sunday to undertake the Bosphorousros tour. Below are a couple of pictures that we took on the trip.