February 18th, 2026
We got a late start to the day. Istanbul is 8 hours ahead of Florida. We were both awake at 4:30am and did not think we could go back to sleep but we did. At 11:30am I woke Kathy up and she was shocked that it was so late. Today was much cooler than it has been here and very windy and overcast. The temperature said 34 but with windchill it felt like 29. We did not have a plan for today but we did want to avoid Old Town, where most of the tourist areas are, because there was a cruise ship in port. Interesting itinerary with the cruise ship, it was MSC Lyrica and it does 7 days round trip but it is round trip of whatever port it is in. So if not a sea day you have passengers embarking and disembarking all week long.
While doing some looking on line yesterday I found a loop route to a pedestrian street that goes to Galata Tower and then back down to the port so we headed off on foot a little after noon.
We stopped at a little bakery / cafe for a light snack. I ordered a fried potato roll and a fried feta roll. They pretty much put anything in filo and fry it up. The Turks say bread is their love language and they have it with every meal. Cats are also very popular and well fed in Turkey. They belong to everyone and you see food and water bowls all around the city. You see them everywhere and on everything. This one cafe was full except 1 table and no one wanted to disturb the occupant.
The pedestrian street which goes up hill and has a tram that runs down the middle. As we were walking we had snow flurries which was fun. It did not stick and later turned to sleet but better than rain.
The architecture along the route was also very nice.
We had on triple layers, cold and windy, bad hair day 🙂
We stopped along the way and got a hot chocolate and cappuccino to warm up. They make a big deal of taking time to enjoy nourishment.
We stopped by Galata Tower building built in 1350 but decided 30 euros each to walk up a million stairs was not worth it so we admired it from the outside.
We were glad we were headed down and not up because the streets got very steep right before we hit the river.
We basically did a 6 mile circle and ended up back at the cruise port. Since a ship was in, the barrier was up to separate the pier from the shopping center. It really is a cool design. When there are no cruise ships you can walk all the way to the water unobstructed. When a cruise ship is in a panel lifts up and reveals a ramp leading down 24 feet into the cruise terminal for cruise passengers to go through immigration before coming out into the mall. Saves all that effort of having security putting up and taking down barriers and provides a security perimeter.
Our loop today. we are the blue dot. We made it back to the hotel at 6:30pm and had dinner reservations at Nobu which is in the hotel. We had a great table with a river view.
Our dinner cocktails. Speaking of cocktails I forgot to mention that when we were on the plane flying here I asked for a cranberry and vodka. I figured the plane originated in Chicago they would have regular US drinks. The stewardess said she did not have cranberry but could do raspberry. I thought that was a little strange but said that was fine. She brought me a full glass of a light colored drink and I took a sip and realized it was raspberry vodka. I could not drink it. Way too much vodka for me. We also had an experience with the hotel on the day I was under the weather. Kathy ventured out to find me a soda late in the evening and asked the concierge where we could get some ice. They did not speak good English and asked her how much she wanted and Kathy said 1 bucket. About 30 minutes later somebody showed up to the room with 2 plastic bags, dripping and stapled closed with ice in them. There is no ice bucket in the room so she put the bags in the sink.
Tomorrow we have a car picking us up at 11am to take us to the airport to fly to Cappadocia. The weather is supposed to be cold but beautiful. We are excited to go to an area we have not been to before.