Where’s home?
After traveling for over ten months now, I often start to ask myself: where is home? I have visited so many places. Just to recall, I have been to Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Santiago, Valparaiso, San Francisco, Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and all through New Zealand, Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, Zurich, […] Read More
Heading west
My time in the Middle East is already up. Today I fly back to Zurich, with a short stop over in Istanbul, and then tomorrow on to Montréal. Here are the stats: Flight 22 to Istanbul Date: 24/06/2014 Code: THY795 from IST to TLV Airline: Turkish Airlines Plane: Airbus 321-200 Distance flown: 775 Miles Duration: 1h50 […] Read More
Istanbul spending
And here are the final figures of my budget in Istanbul. It was much cheaper than expected, even with the hick-up of the cancellation and rental of a new place after the little incident. Truth be told, the visit of my sister also contributed a lot to it, she not only paid a part of […] Read More
Yummy Kadiköy
On the last day in Istanbul I decided to make it over to Kadiköy on the Asian shore. It’s supposed to have a great market on Tuesdays, although I did not make it there in the end. They have moved the market further from the ferry, so I just strolled through the Balik Pazari, the […] Read More
Underground (and over water)
Istanbul’s public transport system is developing faster than they can print the maps. My books are useless when it comes to the metro/tram system. The otherwise greatly informative and amusing Gebrauchsanweisung Istanbul (Istanbul Manual) published in 2010 lists one (!) metro line in operation…. The maps in several apps for my phone are helplessly out of […] Read More
Golden Gate
It turns out, not only San Francisco has a Golden Gate. Istanbul does, too. I wanted to make a walk along and on top of the city walls, the part that has been reconstructed… so I headed to the train station and hopped on a train in this direction (more on that adventure later) and […] Read More
Çukurcuma
I think I landed in one of the most beautiful, buzzing, yet calm and relaxed neighborhoods in Istanbul. Çukurcuma is a little neighborhood in the Beyoğlu district in Istanbul, formerly known under its greek name of Pera, and has everything you could wish for… The little street down from my apartment alone has a hotel, several […] Read More
Asia
It was sunny, and so I took the ferry from Kabatas to Üsküdar on the Asian side of Istanbul, following the last mail from my sister with stuff we didn’t do. The ferry system is great to cross over, you can use your Istanbulkart that works on Metro’s, Trams and buses, to hop on pretty much […] Read More
Istanbul Arts
My neighborhood in Beyoglu has a great number of little galleries and two major museums, that I have visited in the past days First, Istanbul Modern. It sits at the foot of the hill, a bit hidden between a beautifully renovated mosque, the cruise ship quay and an empty parking lot, that soon will be […] Read More