Istanbul - October 18, 2013

Arrival at the Istanbul airport was quite a shock to my system. We had just left Zagreb, the capital of Croatia and its largest city with a population of fewer than 800,000 people. Istanbul is the second largest city in the world by population. The latest census counted 13.9 million people, and I don't think anyone has moved away.

We were met by a representative of the hotel who escorted us to our shuttle and off we went to the Hotel Romantic.  Again, we had decided that everything we wanted to see in Istanbul was in Old Town and the Hotel Romantic was a great place to start.

If didn't take long to explore lower levels of this tiny hotel, but once we reached the roof-top terrace, we were spell-bound. This was our view from one window,

And this was the view from the opposite direction.

After settling in, we went for a walk around the neighborhood,

Found a great restaurant

Featuring fish so fresh they were still wiggling.

By the time we finished dinner, it was already dark.  Back to the hotel. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.