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A night cruise on the Bosphorus strait - Istanbul

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The previous post in this series is here..

After visiting the Topkapi place on our second afternoon in Istanbul, we got back to the hotel to catch up with the little one who was busy studying. Did a quick shower, change into nicer clothes and off we went on an Uber to the docks. We had booked a Viator cruise on the Bosphorus strait which included a vegetarian dinner and live entertainment.

We were flanked on either side by a group of desi boys who had all started working recently after graduating and a family from Germany with two little kids. We were chit chatting and before we knew it, there was some really good entertainment. We even got a visual of the swirling dervishes. Not posting pictures as it is all in the video.

Between the food and entertainment, we went out to the deck to get pictures. The iconic golden gate looking bridge that shows up in every Turkish serial that San watches was there in front of us! It is really as beautiful to see the coastline as it is in the serials!

There was a photographer who took shots of all of us and obviously sold the nice pictures to us at the end of the cruise. It was more of a memorabilia for me. My girls are always pretty in my eyes, but to see them from another persons lens made me smile.

The gallery of lights as seen from the cruise..

A few other pictures from this cruise and on our way back to the hotel.. where the mosques light up the place.

A video highlights reel of the cruise and the entertainment..

Strongly recommend this cruise if you visit Istanbul. Given my allergies and food restrictions, they gave me enough to eat to keep me going for the two plus hours on the cruise. We found a nice driver called Mustafa who took us from the hotel to the place and he told us “god willing, I will get to take you back when you return as my house is close to your hotel”.. and sure enough, god willed for him. We hailed for an Uber in the crowd and Mustafa shows up!

We had a really great time as a family on this cruise. It was chilly when we got out. We were going to wake up and go for one last interesting experience the following morning before leaving the city.. god willing, will write that post tonight.

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An old city center unlike any other - Prague

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The previous post in this series is here..

After we said bye to our guide and group, we walked back to the Kafka statue and our hotel with a stop at the clock. There was not a big crowd as it was not on the hour.

We watched the Kafka head do a few turns and walked into the mall. There was an Indian food place in the second floor which had Chai and missi roti’s. So we sampled some stuff there and watched the shoppers.

Then we decided to go back to our room, wash and change and go back to see the clock and Prague by night. As soon as we got ready, we went for dinner at Masala, the Indian restaurant right next to the hotel.

The food was great but it was my mistake not to tell the guy “no sesame seeds”.. They brought me butter naan with sesame seeds. By the time we waited for the new Naan to arrive, things got cold as they got a flurry of customers within a 10 minute window! All said and done, the food was great. We were happy!

We were literally in a small backyard surrounded by high rise buildings.. it was beautiful.. this dinner was actually one of the nicest dinners we had in recent times!

Our walk back through the square. The memories of San twirling around like a little princess in this square are priceless.

There were a lot of captures on this walk. Here are the galleries

portrait format gallery..

a few pano shots of the clouds rolling in

We walked back to see the clock chime and there was hardly any room to stand in that crowd. We watched this “antique clock” do its thing and walked further out towards Charles bridge. The sunset was blurred by clouds and it was getting dark and ominous as there was rain in the forecast. We were both wearing chappals and once it started raining, we made a run back towards our hotel which was a good 20 minutes away.

Here is a tip. Don’t run with chappals on cobble stone streets!

We made it back to our hotel and got some well deserved rest.

A highlight video of this last part..

After this it was going to be a ride to the airport in the morning and fly out to our last destination on the grand tour! We did so much in those two and a half days that it will take me a long time to finish writing about.

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The magic of Charles bridge and the Vltava river

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The previous post in this series is here..

Good thing the photos and videos are bringing back memories.

After our visit to the castle complex, our guide walked us down the hundreds of steps to the Charles bridge that was built starting in 1347 AD!

It is a fantastic bridge as are the statues on it.

We walked down the steps and right before we got to the bridge we got some funnel cake. It is a local delicacy. We missed it in Budapest.. but got it here. It was close to a Churro..

After this walk across the bridge, we got to see the old Jewish Quarter, one of the oldest areas in Prague, followed by a lunch with local cuisine (which doesn’t have much in the way of Vegetarian options).. so we ate fried cheese and bread.. the rest of the group loved it. This was a restaurant in the basement of a 800 year old building. They had to put special wiring in to light the place with bulbs. It was interesting.

This was followed by more walking and finally a boat cruise on the river to see all the landmark buildings from the river. When the cruise was over, we said bye to our guide. He told us to walk back to the hotel through a gap! We went “duh”.. why did we Uber here in the morning. we could have just walked it!

a few photo galleries.. We walked past the place where they shot the first Mission Impossible movie and actually recognized it. Our guide was full of information on events that we could recognize from famous movies, famous artists who came to Prague and were inspired, there was a lot of talk of Duran Duran, etc. He was an “all things Prague” guy!

A lot of photos in the Portrait format gallery.. tall structures, small roads, go figure!

The clock tower in the old square was supposed to be a highlight and our guide said go there and don’t miss it. San and me decided to walk around a bit. We also got to spend time at the Kafka head which turns every few minutes. When we saw the head, we realized it was 300 feet from our hotel. So we decided to take a break go get changed and then get back to the square.

A video highlights reel of this part of the Prague tour..

The last part of our evening in another post..

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.