Today we arrived in Istanbul! Albeit a mostly gray day at the time, the city is beautiful to behold!If I understood the Cruise Director, the mosque on the left is the famous Blue Mosque, officially the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, built in the early 1600's, much later than I had thought.
The "Blue" comes from the blue tiles inside. The mosque looking building on the right is the Hagia Sophia, originally a Christian Basilica, then a mosque, now a museum.
We sailed close to the Bosphorus bridge connecting Europe (west) Istanbul, on the left, to Asia (east) Istanbul then made a u-turn to dock on the European side.
This afternoon, our excursion is "Cruise on the Bosphorus" so perhaps we will then see the bridge from the underside.
Tomorrow we will also be in Istanbul. It is a "turn day" where most passengers will be disembarking with new ones coming on. There are a few that are continuing on to Dubai or Cape Town so Regent has arranged a couple of shore excursions for us to choose from.
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