Life in the Old World

We have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to travel throughout Europe. Looking back, here are our favorites from our travels:

Best Dinning Experience:
Ben: Fermani in Florence
Kristin: Cinque Queso pasta in Barcelona, Diavola pizza in Krakow, Pesto in Cinque Terre

Worst Drink:
Ben: I like it all!
Kristin: uzzo in Greece and Limoncello

Best Market:
Ben: Mercado Maravilla in Madrid
Kristin: outdoor Provincial market in Nice, France and the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul

Best Small Town:
Ben: Arles, France and Locanda dell'Amorosa, Tuscany, Italy
Kristin: Ribota, Spain

Best Bang for Your Buck:
Ben: Krakow, Poland
Kristin: Lisbon, Portugal

Best Experience:
Ben: Running with the bulls in Pozuelo, Spain and taking the waters (thermal baths) in Budapest, Hungary
Kristin: The night train in Eastern Europe and La Alhambra in Granada

Worst Experience:
Ben: Getting from the Charles de Gaulle airport to downtown Paris during a transportation strike. We finally arrived at our hotel at 1 AM.
Kristin: The bus home from Sevilla, Spain. It was raining and the window and roof had a leak.

Best Castle:
Ben: Carcassonne in France.
Kristin: El alcazar in Segovia, Spain and the Linderhof in Germany.

Best Off the Beaten Path Experience:
Ben: Los Picos de Europa
Kristin: Hydra and Los Picos de Europa

Funniest Language Experience:
Ben: Trying to buy golden delicious apples at Mercado Maravilla and asking for "las manzanas azules". The lady is looking at him holding up cabbage and other various items. Ben is thinking "come on lady! I'm speaking your language! Figure it out!" She finally figures out what he means, holds up the apple and says "amarilla"!
Kristin: making a dinner reservation, it took 5 languages to get it done: Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese and English.

Best City Park:
Ben: Madrid Rio
Kristin: Retiro in Madrid

Most Overrated City:
Ben: Barcelona, Spain
Kristin: Budapest and Monaco

Lives Up to Its Hype:
Ben: Amsterdam, Paris and Venice
Kristin: Paris, Istanbul and Rome

Most Livable City:
Ben: Krakow, Poland
Kristin: Amsterdam

Best Drink:
Ben: homemade limoncello in Cinque Terre and Barolo wine
Kristin: tinto de verano

Best Tapas:
Ben: fried calamaris and sardines from Cafe Raypi at Mercado Maravilla and jamón iberico
Kristin: patas bravas and croquetas

Best Plaza:
Ben: Siena, Italy during the ceremony of horses
Kristin: Plaza España in Sevilla

Best Street Food
Ben: pickled herring sandwich in Amsterdam and kebaps
Kristin: slouvaki in Greece and kielbasa in Krakow

Best Pastries:
Ben: It's a close race but Lisbon beats Paris.
Kristin: The pasties de Belem in Portugal and the homemade cookies in Hydra, Greece.

Best Cathedral Outside of Italy:
Ben: The Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and the mezquita in Córdoba
Kristin: La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona

Best Museum:
Ben: National Archaeological Museum in Greece and the Louvre
Kristin: Auschwitz and the Prado in Madrid

Favorite Christmas Experience:
Ben: Cortylandia
Kristin: The life size nativity scene in El Escorial.

Best Beach:
Ben: Any beach in la comunidad de Asturias, Spain
Kristin: Sitges, Spain and Nice, France

Best City in Spain:
Ben: Valencia
Kristin: Sevilla

Best Religious Site:
Ben: the marble steps in Rome that Jesus walked up when he went on trial with Pontius Pilate
Kristin: Pillar of the flogging and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul

Wow Moment:
Ben: Postojna Caves in Slovenia
Kristin: the Statue of David in Florence

Our Best Weeks in Europe:
1.Rome, Florence and Tuscany
2. Paris, Versailles and Normandy
3. Athens and some Greek Islands

Places We Still Want to Go:
1. Cadíz, Spain
2. Berlin, Germany
3. The United Kingdom
4. Cappadocia
5. El Camino de Santiago and Santiago de Compostela
6. The Dalmatian Islands in Croatia
7. Rhine River cruise
8. Norway
9. Iceland

We arrived into the city about the time people start gathering in the parks to break the fast for Ramadan. In addition, the plaza we had to walk through to get to our hotel had entertainment so we were fighting our way through 1000s of people to try to get to the other side. Once we got cleaned up we headed out for dinner. We ate at an outdoor cafe that had some live music and a man doing the traditional dance for that area: whirling dervishes. It is a very fluid dance that involves only spinning. The man reminded me of a spinning dancer on a music box. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and hung out on the roof top terrace which overlooks the Bosphorus Strait and you can also see the Blue Mosque.

Our second day we enjoyed a delicious breakfast on the terrace and then headed off to the Topkapi Palace. We saw elaborately decorated rooms and an impressive treasury with lots of diamonds, emeralds, thrones, bejeweled knife cases etc. The Holy Relic rooms has an imam (religious leader) who reads verses from the Quarn 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An imam has been doing it in that very spot for centuries now. After the palace we went to the Harem. I learned that a sultan only has up to 4 wives and 4 'favorites', all chosen by his mother. The concubines that live in the harem are there to serve the wives and the favorites, not the sultan. The sultan's mother is called the Mother Sultan and is a very powerful person! If you got on her bad side, good luck! Generally the Mother Sultan held more power in the palace and even kingdom than the sultan. Next we went to the Grand Bazaar. It is the world's oldest shopping mall with 4,000+ merchants. Ben got to practice his bartering skills for a scarf. It was funny for me to watch but at the same time I did not like it! I am the perfect prey for a greedy merchant so I just stood there quietly and watched or wandered off to look at something else. While in the bazaar we tried Turkish coffee, aka coffee ground sludge. They grind the beans very fine and don't use a filter so it is quite gritty. After lunch we went for some Turkish ice cream. It's really yummy! It's very creamy and almost chewy. The servers make a game of it when you order it. Check the video out. The guy totally got me the first time. Ordering Turkish Ice Cream

After the ice cream we headed back to the hotel and rested for a bit. We tried to figure out how to wrap a head scarf since we were headed to the Blue Mosque later. By the time we got to the Blue Mosque it was closed to visitors so we hung out in Sultanahmet Park for a few hours. We ate watermelon, honey soaked churros, some sort of flat bread and watched the people gather to break the fast together. While we were sitting on the bench an Australian couple joined us and we chatted with them for a bit. As soon as the call to prayer sounded people started eating, drinking, and smoking. It was fun to watch.

Our third day we went to the Blue Mosque. It was very different from any other place of worship we have visited. Instead of icons, chapels, long narrow aisles with lots of benches and paintings it was a giant wide open space, no seats, no depictions of humans, only geometric decorations. It was beautiful! Next we went to the Hagia (eye-uh) Sophia which was originally a Christian church (537AD) during the Byzantine empire and turned into a mosque during the Ottoman empire. We also saw the mausoleums while there. Next we went to the Suleymaniye Mosque which can hold 8,000 worshipers and it still has overflow seating outside! We went to the Spice Market and got some yummy Turkish Delight. For lunch we went to the Galata Bridge and had some fish sandwiches at a restaurant underneath the bridge. Later in the afternoon we went to the Basilica Cistern and then hung out in the main square and had some snacks. For dinner we went to a couple different eateries to gather food for a picnic dinner on the terrace.

Our final full day we went on a cruise (read: large public ferry boat) up the Bosphorus Strait where we stopped in Anadolu Kavagi, Turkey, Asia. We spent a few hours in the village, hiked up the hill to Yoros Castle which has a good view of the Black Sea. We had lunch at a cafe on the sea and then got back on the ferry for Istanbul. Our picnic dinner was so good the previous night we did the same thing again. We went to bed early because we had to get up at 5:00 to catch the shuttle to the airport.

Hanging out in the airport at Ljubjlana, trying to figure out what the deal is with our tickets. We spent a good 8 hours on that bench.

Our hotel room:

Topkapi Palace

You weren't allowed to take pictures in here hence the blurriness but we couldn't resist a quick one. The swords were so big!!

The sultan's throne. I would not mind having a throne like that!

Entering the harem:

The Grand Bazaar:

The mess of wires in there was crazy.

A whirling dervishe

Baklava. Yum!

Fail on on the head scarf wrapping.

The Blue Mosque:

Breaking of the fast during Ramadan.

Inside the Blue Mosque:

No shoes allowed!

Hagia Sophia:

If you can twist your thumb full circle and if it comes out slightly damp you have received healing powers.

The mosaics were insane! The tiles they used are minuscule.

Vikings and other people that came here would get bored up in the balcony and graffiti the railings.

The particular lady sultan married and divorced numerous men so instead of re-tiling her husband's face each time they left the same face and scratched the name out and replaced it with the new one.

The minbar (staircase) that the imam stands on during a service. He only goes halfway up because only Muhammad is worthy to go all the way to the top.