The current Hagia Sofia dates back to the 6^th century, even though there has been a Hagia Sofia at this site since 350 AD. It is famous not so much for its exterior as for the interior – the way the central dome is constructed represents a revolution in architecture. Walking in, you get the sense of being inside a giant hall in a separate universe, completely apart from the outside world. It was the main church for the Byzantine empire: a central place in the first thousand years of Christian history.

In 1453, the city fell (or was liberated, depending on how you look at it) to the Turks, and Hagia Sofia was converted into a mosque. I have mixed emotions about this: the black and golden shields that hang in there so obviously do not belong in that space (they were added in the 19^th century), and the Arabic script painted inside the main dome look clumsy and out of place. Ironically, the conversion into a mosque probably saved Hagia Sofia, as the church had fallen into a state of serious dilapidation during the last decades of the Byzantian empire. In 1935, the government declared it to be a museum, and I believe this is the best solution for this incredible building. If you want to see an actual example of Islamic architecture, the stunning Blue Mosque is just across the street.

Hagia Sofia is a stunner.

Related posts:

1. Hagia Sofia Walk-through Sometimes, a picture says more than a thousand words. At...
2. How We Spent an (Almost) Free Day in Istanbul Istanbul is not cheap. It’s a bustling metropolis of European...
3. The Church of Kalix We’ve visited many a church and religious wonder during this...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This video is from the ground floor of the same building.

Related posts:

1. Video: A Walk Around the Ruined Garden of Eden   If we were honest, we’d have to admit that...
2. How We Spent an (Almost) Free Day in Istanbul Istanbul is not cheap. It’s a bustling metropolis of European...
3. Photo Gallery: The Back Roads of Ancient Diyarbakir, Turkey We decided to do the tried-and-true travel method of getting...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Before letting you in on our cheap little secrets I’ll get the painful bits out of the way: there are two absolute must-do sites in Istanbul that are not free. There’s no getting around it. You’ll want to see them, you’ll be sorry if you don’t, so plan to spend around $10/person for the Hagia Sophia and $5/person to see the Byzantine Cistern. More on those two in a moment.

Right then! Let’s get to it. We’ll begin our day with it’s most important meal: breakfast. Any decent hotel/guesthouse/hostel will include the cost of it in your stay. Our breakfast was simple fare: an egg, bread, olives, tomato and cheese but it will cost you nothing (above the cost of the room itself). Many of the hotels in the Sultanahmet area have rooftop decks with spectacular views of the Blue Mosque. Delicious, nutritious Turkish breakfast overlooking the Istanbul skyline: Free!

Take time to soak in the morning views over breakfast, but it’s best to set out early. The Hagia Sophia, Istanbul’s jaw-dropping 1,700 year old church-turned-museum opens at 9:00am and you’ll want to be there on the dot. We were lucky and beat the busloads that poured in as we were leaving. As I said, expect to pay around $10/person to enter but take my word for it – it is worth every penny.

Once we had our fill of the amazing Byzantine-era church, we checked out the ancient water Cistern located conveniently across the street. A few flights below street level, the Cistern is a dimly lit colonnaded Byzantine-era water tank. It still holds a pool of water and giant fish, to boot! Again, it will set you back $5/person to enter but you don’t want to miss it.

Istanbul waterfront

A short walk from the Cistern exit is the Bosphorus waterfront, a popular place to grab a ferry. In the interest of saving money, we opted out of the ferry, preferring to spend the afternoon walking. As long as you have a good pair of shoes, walking is the absolute best way to check out a new town. Taking a stroll along the waterfront: Free!

By this time we’d worked up quite an appetite. Thanks to some great advice from @ayearinmotion and @noplacelikeoz, we knew just the spot for a great inexpensive Istanbul waterfront specialty: the fish sandwich. Passing up the more expensive fish restaurants in the area, we found a great little vendor on the far side of the bridge. A fresh caught grilled fish sandwich: $2/person

A short walk up a steep hill after crossing the Galata bridge is Istiklal Caddesi in Beyoglu, a fantastic area recommended to us by @italofileblog. We walked up the hill, but the area can be reached by tram if those legs are starting to tire. Chic restaurants and great window shopping abound here. Exploring the maze-like backstreets of Istaklal Cad: Free!

Our next move was a return to the Sultanahmet area for a much needed cup of Turkish tea and a plate of baklava. We opted to sit on a main road to people watch while divulging in the sweet, crunchy goodness. A little people watching while satisfying our sweet tooth: $2/person

Carpet vendor in the Grand Bazaar

A little pep talk was needed before our next destination. It went something like, “I will not spend money. I will just look. I will not fall in love with anything.” Our destination (which you might have guessed): the glorious Grand Bazaar. Housing over 4,000 stalls, this maze of glittery, golden temptations is something you have to see to believe. Our tip: don’t show an interest or you’ll walk away with the object. The shop keepers are that good. Fortunately we’d already bought our souvenir a few weeks earlier, so we walked away without spending a dime (well, lira to be exact). Spending an hour playing what-would-we-buy-if-we-had-money in the Grand Bazaar: Free!

Blue Mosque Interior

The final site for the day was the Blue Mosque. Our tips: check out the closing times, as it is a place of worship and closes several times a day for worship. They enforce a strict dress code, but have helpful swaths of cloth for those who might need a little more coverage. Donations are welcome, but they charge no entrance fee. Spending time checking out the interior of this enormous Muslim holy place: Free!

Dinner was an exploration of another Turkish specialty: the kebab. This was followed by a cone of (strangely stringy) Turkish ice cream while watching the last of the sunset over the Blue Mosque.

It takes stamina but a day in the the fascinating ancient city of Istanbul is possible for just under $20/person. Thank you Istanbul for the kind of day that makes us know we’ll return (with a long list for the bazaar) soon!

Related posts:

1. How We Spent an (Almost) Free Day in London We’re poor backpackers. I’ll just say that up front. We’ve...
2. Turkish Wine Tasting The key to happy traveling is to enjoy a variety...
3. Holy Carp! Believe it or not: these carp were once the glowing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

After sampling their house wine (a pretty obvious Bordeaux copy that didn’t inspire much appreciation), we decided to try eight wines, four each of the Bogazkere and the Ökuzgözu varietals.

Generally speaking, the Ökuzgözu wines are fruity and nice, with lots of flavors. Bogazkere wines presents more structure and are ideal companions to meat. Both are unexpectedly acidic. Turkish wine makers often blend the two, creating really quite excellent wines.

We were surprised at the range of characteristics displayed by each grape. One of the Ökuzgözu wines felt like a Russian River pinot noir, you know the kind you can drink a bucket of before you tire. Another was incredibly fruity, while a third was so acidic that we instantly hated it. I would easily have mistaken two of the Bogazkere for something nice from Bordeaux – excellent beef or lamb chop wines.

Turkish wine is definitely something we’ll keep an eye out for in our local wine store – where ever that will be!

Related posts:

1. Turkish Wine: A Couple of Tasting Notes  Most of the countries we’ve traveled through on this one-year...
2. Turkish Kurdistan – Current Security Situation When looking at the map, it is pretty evident that...
3. A Day of Decadence: The Anti-backpack Break Batumi is being pimped out as the next “it” place...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Indeed, Efes is the most sold beer in Turkey. It actually ranks as one of Europe’s top 10 selling beer brands. We found it in a number of varieties: bottles, cans, Efes Ice, Efes draft etc.

The taste? It’s like any other international style lager – pretty predictable, with a balanced make-up and just enough hops to make it interesting. A problem in Eastern Turkey was that the beers have often been kept in ice cold conditions for long periods of time, alternating with times of very warm temperatures. Hence, some bottles were a bit on the flat side.

Still, a very enjoyable acquaintance, perfect for washing down the travel dust after a bout with the Anatolian roads.

Related posts:

1. Myanmar Beer Review Our famous pig Bacon once said that “To know a...
2. Nepal Beer Review   I know what you’re thinking – FINALLY an important...
3. India Beer Review Our time here in India is winding down, and it’s...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The smell of seawater hangs heavy in the air. Tank-top clad women, so different from the their Turkish neighbors, stroll proudly down the boardwalk. Sidewalks are lined with trellises covered in twisted grape vines. Ancient men sit together on the street corners playing backgammon. It’s the kind of place we’ve been searching for; a place where you unpack your backpack, buy bottles of wine and fill your day with deliciously decadent activities. So, to celebrate Batumi’s aged romantic vibe (and in the name of all things anti-backpacker), we spent yesterday in the pursuit of decadence.

The day started with breakfast in our room of left-over cheese pie and orange juice. It’s not necessarily a decadent start to the day, unless you know that they came out of our in-room mini-fridge. That’s right. We have a fridge in our room. Total decadence.

The morning’s activity was a short ride south of town: a still intact Roman fortress. The ruins were close enough that we only had to spend just two hours round-trip to see them, thus leaving our afternoon free. For anyone who plans to drink wine for most of the day, sightseeing in the morning is a must.

Lunch was, surprise-surprise, more cheese pie (it seems to be all they eat here), washed down with a local brew. OK, actually it was two big mugs of beer each. But who’s counting?

We were scheduled to play tennis in the late afternoon, so we whiled away the hottest hours of the day (and the lunch buzz) relaxing in our room. Once the sun had passed sunburn time, we headed to the tennis courts dressed in our Wimbledon best. Neither of us have actually played tennis in our adulthood. Needless to say, we were amazing. An hour spent accidentally whacking the ball over the boundary fences – decadent(ly embarrassing)!

Our tennis cool-down session was spent at a restaurant overlooking the sea. A bottle of delicious Georgian red wine later, we were eating more cheese pie and watching the sun set over the Black Sea coast.

It doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while we have the perfect (anti-backpacker) day.

Related posts:

1. Batumi: Photo Journal of a Black Sea Paradise   I think it’s great when a town shows a...
2. Kachapuri Acharuli: Wow This is what qualifies as a light meal in Georgia:...
3. Turkish Wine: A Couple of Tasting Notes  Most of the countries we’ve traveled through on this one-year...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I can’t say that I see a future for this dish for people who are on a diet, but it sure goes down well with a bottle of red wine and a Black Sea sunset.

Related posts:

1. Travel Dining: A Tale of Wanting What I Can’t Have I love food. It’s as simple as that. Catch me...
2. Entering Georgia   We’re in Georgia – the country, not the US...
3. Nepali Hot and Spicy Potato (Piro Aloo) Recipe Our awesome landlord Arjun had us over for the feast...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The fortress is also where the Apostle Matthias, sometimes known as Levi (patron saint of alcoholism, carpenters, smallpox, tailors and Gary, Indiana), lies buried under a neat little rock. Pilgrims sometimes gather around it to read from the Bible and pay their respects. We paid our respects to the pilgrims, by not taking pictures during their ceremony.

All in all Gonio is a nice little distraction from the hedonistic beach town of Batumi. I imagine that come summer, enormous hordes of tourists swarm the fort, leaving a trail of melted ice-cream and cigarette butts in their wake. We just happened to catch it at exactly the right time – spring in Georgia is just awesomely beautiful, and Gonio is no exception.

Related posts:

1. Batumi: Photo Journal of a Black Sea Paradise   I think it’s great when a town shows a...
2. A Day of Decadence: The Anti-backpack Break Batumi is being pimped out as the next “it” place...
3. The First Temple – a Visit to the Ruined Garden of Eden Göbekli Tepe is a world sensation. The site has been...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

My current plan is to lock her in a cheap hotel room and throw away the key. I mean, seriously. This is heading for disaster! Anyone out there have any ideas on how to live on the cheap in Istanbul?

Related posts:

1. You’ve Been on the Road Too Long When… You know you’ve been on the road too long when...
2. The Lowdown on Sweden’s Ice Hotel The arctic circle is a latitudinal line that defines the...
3. Turkey – Tourism With a Personal Touch We don’t make hotel reservations. Rather, I should say that...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I think it’s great when a town shows a bit of age. A few cracks here and a little rust there creates character. Knowing this, it’s no surprise that I’ve fallen in love with Batumi, the popular seaside town on the southern tip of Georgia.

The air feels Mediterranean, the streets are wide, the homes are properly run-down (not crumbling, but romantically cracked) and the sun doesn’t stop shining. OK, it goes down for a while at night, but in the day it’s divine.

Sadly, I’m not the only one to discover Batumi. The bigwigs (Hilton and Sheraton) have moved to town. Their massive hotels are due to be completed in 2011. It seems the town is following suit with a frenzy of rebuilding and refurbishing. Most of the town remains in character with beautifully rusted facades, flanked by impossibly tall grape vines, but change is in the air.

To illustrate my point, I’ve put a photo gallery together that shows both sides of the town – Batumi, new and old.

Related posts:

1. Entering Georgia   We’re in Georgia – the country, not the US...
2. Photo Gallery: Stockholm by Ferry We wrote a little tip about exploring Stockholm by ferry...
3. Photo Gallery: The Back Roads of Ancient Diyarbakir, Turkey We decided to do the tried-and-true travel method of getting...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.