Istanbul - Part II (October 4th - October 6th)

Thursday October 4th and we flew back to Istanbul for the last leg of our trip, arriving at our hotel in the Sultanhamet area of the city at around 2pm. It was cool and grey but blue skies were creeping in on the horizon and by late afternoon it was sunny but still cool. Luckily our sight seeing plans were all very close to the hotel which meant David didn't have to do much hobbling around.

We visited the Archeological Museum which was very good but parts of it were closed for renovations and while sitting in the museum garden enjoying tea and cake at the end of our visit I watched Alpine swifts flying around overhead with jackdaws and Alexandrine parakeets flying into the trees to roost as the sun was setting.

The next morning was sunny and warm and before breakfast I spent some time admiring the view from our hotel room looking out across the Sea of Marmara and the entrance to The Bosphorous and was delighted to see small flocks of Yelkouan shearwaters flying across the water heading up into the Black Sea. Even better were bottle nose dolphins feeding offshore, mostly unobtrusive and difficult to keep track of but occassionally leaping out of the water and tail splashing.

The View from our Hotel Room

We spent the day visiting the Haghia Sophia, the Hippodrome and the Basicilca Cistern and while wandering around saw the usual birds - hooded crow, laughing dove, house sparrow, yellow legged gull and starling along with a sparrowhawk, a lesser whitethroat and a flyover grey heron. And the end of the day saw us enjoying a beer on the Galata Bridge again, watching the comings and goings of the ferries as the sun was setting

 Haghia Sophia

 Haghia Sophia Mosaic

 Haghia Sophia Mausoleum

Hippodrome Obelisk

 Laughing Dove

 Laughing Dove 

 Laughing Dove 

Bosphorous Ferry from The Galata Bridge

Saturday October 6th and it was time to head back to the UK with a 9:30 transfer to the airport. I had a last scan of the sea from our hotel room before leaving but there was no sign of any shearwaters or dolphins but 2 noisy Sandwich terns were a surprise. Watching the yellow legged gulls stealing food from the tables on the hotels breakfast terrace was also fun.

 Yellow-legged Gull

Yellow-legged Gull

Arriving back at Heathrow and it was wet and windy again but I did see 2 red kites on the drive back to Plymouth (M3 and A303) and red legged partridges near Stonehenge.

And so another great trip, some good wildlife sightings and some interesting sight seeing but a mixed bag of weather and I've arrived home feeling more tired than before I left - so a good holiday all round!