Picture of Damien Saunders at night in front of Blue Mosque Istanbul Turkiye

Istanbul is the only city to cross 2 continents, where the past, present and future collide

Istanbul is real! I’m actually here! I am still just as moved now as i was 2 weeks ago when I left Aus. Weird, maybe this feeling will never go.

I sit on the roof of the hostel and can look over the water to Asia! I look to my left and see the Blue Mosque, on the right the Sancta Sophia, further over is the Topkapi Palace.

Today we started well - withdrawing 200,000,000 Turkish Lira or a bit less than 200AUD. Yes everything is in the millions! Petrol is 1,982,500 TLR per litre for regular and a Big Mac will set you back 4,100,000 TLR.

The Blue Mosque is just mysterious - both in design and from a sacred perspective. But its beautiful and has a such a presence. I’m going back on Tuesday to have a look.

Topkapi Palace is awesome and the single largest palace in the world. The Sultans ruled from here for about 4 centuries. The Treasury was amazing. Single Diamond found on the rubbish tip was brought for 3 teaspoons and turned out to be 87 carats! beat the Debeers! We made a wrong turn and walked in to the sacred room where items belonging to Mohammed the Prophet are stored. Including his hair! Again this is amazing.

Finished the Day with a bus tour around the city .. you have to do this to realise there is 12m people here and how old the place is. So much that will be left behind that Neil and I wont get to see .. but time is kind of against us already

Gallipoli tomorrow! Tuesday is more of Istanbul

Tags: Turkey

Read more from my blog for an introduction and quick tips on developing in Hugo or UCTD.

Meet the author

Photo for Damien Saunders
Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.