It's like Hong Kong here today being a Bayram public holiday, the streets and squares are jam packed with people and how someone isn't mown down by one of the trams as pavements funnel into single file walkways at many points is beyond me. The North Shield isn't representative of the city, in fact Istanbul is surprisingly good value in many of the places we have been today, the hop on / hop off bus tour was less than half the price we paid in both Paris & Barcelona, we took a 90 minute river cruise which was 20 lira each and really nice, fish half bread kebabs by the waterfront at 5 lira were delicious, a side street cafe almost opposite the North Star sells large draft efes for 6 lira and last night our hotel roof top restaurant meal overlooking the Bosphorus was not only delicious but also excellent value and compatible in price to the Yacht hotels in Fethiye.
The markets and street traders seem to be really good value, the one thing that I did notice is that everything has a price displayed, leather belts, shoes, scarves, slippers etc and all at what seemed to me to be far cheaper than in our markets.
Overall, Calis is still cheap by comparison but obviously that's expected against what must be one of the premiere visitor destinations in the World.
Anyway, just waiting to watch a free show here, about this time of night, the birds come flocking in to roost on the buildings and in the trees in Topkapi park, if you've ever seen Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds........ It's a sight to see. I really wish I had been available to take the DSLR camera course that Nichola arranged to capture the spectacle. Anyway, must go, here they come.