Off the Beaten Path

We recently returned from cruise that included stops in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.  The cruise began and ended in Istanbul and included going through the Bosporus Strait to the Black Sea.  After several stops in the Black Sea region (Sevastapol, Yalta, Odessa, Burgas), we went back through the Bosporus Strait passing Istanbul, across the Sea of Marmara and through the Dardanelles to the Aegean Sea where we stopped in Mykonos, Athens, and Kusadasi (Ephesus.)  We then returned to Istanbul.

We arrived in Istanbul late the night before the cruise was to begin.  The next morning we had a little time before we could go to the ship, so we walked from our hotel up to the Galata Tower,

a lookout/fortification from the Genoese era (late middle ages) from which one has a nice 360 degree view of Istanbul.

From there we walked the length of a boulevard through the "New District" built in the 19th Century that leads to Taksim Square, site of all the protests a few months ago.

A Roman Catholic Church

Statue in honor of Ataturk, first President of Turkey

After our walk to Taksim Square, we hailed a taxi on the street outside of our hotel.  He could only get us to the entrance of the port, so we had about a 10-15 minute walk to our cruise terminal.  When we arrived at the terminal, we were told that there had been numerous cases of the Norovirus on the previous cruise, so we were going to be delayed several hours due to a thorough cleaning of the ship.

The cruise terminal viewed from our room on the ship

We settled into some chairs in a huge gymnasium-like room to wait.  Mark began to rummage around in his computer bag for his cell phone.  He couldn't find it.  He had paid lots of money to have an international calling plan and he was scheduled to have a conference call with a client later in the week besides the usual calls to and from clients.  He felt sick. It had been about 45 minutes since we left our cab and we decided he must have left it there... you know, black interior, black cell phone.  We had no idea the name of the cab company or the driver's name.  And even if we did, we couldn't speak Turkish!  Mark approached one of the Turkish employees at the terminal, explained the situation, and asked if she would call his cell phone number which she was nice to do since it was like calling the USA for her.  The cab driver was apparently surprised to hear a phone ringing in the back of his car and answered.  At first he was reluctant to come back to the pier, since he was already across the Bosporus and in Asia.  But after further discussion with the woman, he said he'd come back.  Mark gave the driver about $40 which he was happy with and we were able to start the cruise on a happy note.