Last Days - Countdown - Day 3

Today we took a passenger ferry to the Princes' Islands - a group of islands in the Marmara Sea just southeast of Istanbul. Before we left, watching the ferries come in was scary. They come in really fast and you just know they are going to crash into the dock, and at the last minute they reverse the engines and just kiss the dock.

In the water in the Bosphorus there are millions and billions of jelly fish! I wouldn't want to swim there.  But even with all the ship traffic, the water is so clean you can see to the bottom.

We also saw some dolphins playing around in the bay. It was a little over an hour ride there. Great views of Istanbul.

Look at all the fishing boats! The Bosphorus is filled with traffic - fishing boats, pleasure boats, ferries criss crossing from the European side to the Asian side and back, Bosphorus cruises, and cargo ships going between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Everywhere you look there are boats.

This is a light house.

Topkapi Palace

The Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya

And of course there were seagulls following us looking for handouts.

Behind the seagulls you can see the main port on the Asian side of Istanbul. Back in the haze in the distance is the European side.

These islands were once where princes and others out of favor were sent into exile. Today 4 of them are inhabited, mostly they are summer homes and resorts. No vehicles are allowed, like Mackinac Island in Michigan - only bikes and horses and carriages.

Okay, so you can see  a vehicle in the background. Actually they do have electric vehicles - golf carts, electric bicycles and scooters, but only gas driven emergency vehicles.

This is the taxi stand. When a ferry pulls in, the people come here to catch a horse taxi to get home.  There were probably 50 or so carriages waiting back there. 

When it absolutely positively has to be there, this is their delivery system from the mainland - boats and horse carts.

We went to the biggest island and walked around a couple hours, had lunch and then came back. Lots of gingerbread houses, and lots of houses in disrepair. Armando said we could stay awhile and paint houses.

Okay, another vehicle - it was a city repair truck.

Again, we saw cats everywhere. There are supposed to be 12 million people in Istanbul and I swear there must be 12 million cats as well.  When I was a kid my mom used to read me a story about "hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats" - seems like that's what we have here.

This guy kept trying to jump in the window and on to our lunch table.

He finally succeeded and he and his friend proceeded to beg for a handout.

Why are there so many cats in Turkey?  I found this on the internet: "Cats have a special place in Islam. Mohammed was a big cat lover, as were several other important Muslim religious figures. So teachings about cats are plentiful in Islam, and they're nearly always about the goodness of cats. One story is how Mohammed so loved his cat that, when the cat fell asleep on his sleeve, Mohammed cut off the sleeve rather than to bother his little friend. A cat supposedly saved Mohammed at some point by killing a snake. There are stories of people who died and went to hell specifically because of their poor treatment of cats. And it's especially good luck if you spot a cat sleeping on the grave of a loved one."