Traveling Again! Turkey bound

 April 23, 2026

I’m headed on another Rick Steves tour (maybe my 9th?).  This time to Turkey.  I’m going to do the blog a little different this time so I can spend more time touring and looking around in the country.  So the plan of what I’m going to do each day is to copy and paste the description of each day from the Rick Steves itinerary and then adding pictures below.  So a lot of the words will not be my own. If we do something off of the actual plan, of course I will add that.  Today Thursday, I am flying for the first time on Turkish Airlines directly from Chicago to Istanbul. I hear that they are a good airline to fly on.   I’ll let you know. (Here is my review-Just average as an airline goes, but the food was good).  

Tomorrow Friday April 24, I arrive in Istanbul at 545am and hit the tourist train immediately when I take a food tour at 1000am.  This isn’t part of the Rick Steves tour, but it is  run by people they know. it should give me a great insight to the city and people of Istanbul. The following is the food tour description.

“This tour designed to complement the Best of Turkey tour, there will be no overlaps but interesting experiences with a look into the everyday life of

Istanbulites by going beyond the Old Town and carrying you into the life of actual people. It will provide you with a boarder look into Istanbul by zooming out your focus from the monuments and the touristy core of the city. You will travel across the Bosphorus. The tour will take place between two different districts, each is representative of the opposite sides of the

political scale, one representative of the conservatives and the other the liberals. First hand, you will experience similarities and differences between

and be amazed at how close they are to one another.

As for the Turkish cuisine, it is a wide spectrum, ranging from micro local / local to imperial. On the Best of Turkey tour, you will be introduced to different local dishes with a boarder aproach to the Turkish cusine overall. The Foodie tour in Istanbul focuses on the Turkish Black Sea and the Mesopotamian cusines which are not part of the itinerary. In that sense, there aren't any repetitions or kebabs! There will be three sit-down food stations and you will taste approximately 10-12 different delicacies. During the day, there will be many chances to talk about contemporary life, living in Istanbul, cost of life, everyday issues and other subjects”

Here was our day:


First stop, we had breakfast, egg, sausage and cheese fondue.  That is the European side of Istanbul that you see in the background. 
It is a tradition to have your coffee grounds read to tell your fortune.   Here is my coffee and while the fortune was long, and I’m sure a bunch of nonsense, here was one part for me The small vertical shapes inside the ring resemble trees or flames.

Typical meaning:

  • Growth
  • Opportunities increasing
  • A situation developing gradually but positively

Several of them together usually mean multiple small wins rather than one big sudden event.

In this picture above, the close walkway and scenery is the Asian side of Istanbul, then across the water (the Bosphorus Straight) is the European side of Istanbul. 

Tasting clams above and yogurt and local honey below

Desert time - similar to baclava, with some ice cream hearts
Some of the many mosques in the city 




 





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