Day 162: Rest day in Istanbul
Too much walking
For some reason it always hurts a lot more to go for a little walk on rest day than to ride 100km on the other days. Anyway, we saw some stuff.
Istanbul is like the missing link between India and western Europe. You can see the lineage from the cities of Jaipur, Ahmedabad etc, but the small shops have almost all been swept away and a large amount of infrastructure has modernised the city.
Rail and foot traffic get a funky new bridge
Back streets
Suleyman mosque - best when you look up
More ceilings - intricate stuff
Outside the Grand Bazaar
Lunch in a quiet oasis
The Basilica Cistern, built in the 6th Century by the Romans to maintain water supply
They reused a few bits of stone when they built the cistern — and they weren’t too bothered which way up they put them