At a Turk! - your doing great

Looking in a shop
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Bunny got here at the Anatolian Airport called Sobiha Gocken which was the name of a female fighter pilot in the Turkish Air Force.  We took a city bus to the ferry to the tram to get to the guesthouse.  You get less for your money hotel wise here but it is clean and comfortable and run by a family whose daughter is very helpful.

We went her first day up to Taksim Square where there is a very cosmopolitan street of bars, restaurants, shops, cinemas and lots of people.  One day before it was the scene of the protest turned violent.  This day I saw a number of people walking around with broken arms.    We had our lunch and a tasty gelato then found the Pera Museum.  A small but well appointed gem that gave us a some excellent info on Byzantine restoration and Ottoman painting.

Ottoman furnishings
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Bunny has joined a music tour group.  Three of them came with us yesterday for a jaunt to the Istanbul Modern Museum of   Art.  Picture a group of Americans on the street corner all huddled around a map trying to make sense of where they are.  We eventually found it tucked back off the main drag and we saw some uninspriring Turkish painting and an excellent photo retrospective of the Magnum Group.

I took off by myself after a spendy lunch and headed down the block to the Dolmabahce Palace which is reputed to have bankrupted the Ottoman Empire when it was built. It is the pentultimate in Rococco.  Lots of swirling excess and truly amazing chandeliers.  The tours were very regimented and there were guards to keep us from walking off the runners and on to the wooden flooring.  We all had to wear shoe condoms.  Room after room of silk, damask, handmade carpets, furnishings and ornate knicknacks.

A detail of the parquet flooring
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I rejoined the music tour group for dinner and then to a concert by a clarinetest named Selim Sessler who had two percussionists, a violinist and a dulcimer player.  The audience would get up and dance with  gusto.  There was a particular older Turkish couple that were so enchanting to watch.  After they danced the people at the tables applauded them.  The Americans joined in the dancing and it was a very fun time till one in the morning.