A weekend in Istanbul

A little late to post this, but in early June me and my fiancé had the opportunity to visit Istanbul to celebrate her birthday.

We’ve been living in Bulgaria for the last 6 years and as we share border with turkey, we had always wanted to visit. I can’t blame some of our friends here who tend to visit istanbul once every month with a return coach ticket from Plovdiv only costing around £30!

It was indeed a lovely weekend trip, but nowhere near long enough to fully explore this city. We didn’t know that Istanbul’s population is 12 million, which becomes very apparent as you start walking the streets in the centre!

I hope you like the photos I managed to take…

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• The first night we stayed in an area called Küçükçekmece, which was close to the bus station we arrived in to. Our hotel was only £15 for the night which is the cheapest place I’ve ever stayed at. There isn’t much to do in this area so we took the metro to see Besiktas!

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For the next 2 nights, we stayed at a wonderful hidden Airbnb (first picture) right next to Istiklal street, which is the main shopping street in Istanbul. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of the inside.
This was the perfect location to go visit Galata tower (even though we didn’t actually go up the tower) and it was only a 20 minute walk to galata bridge which gave a stunning view across to Fatih!

Sultanahmet square was one of the highlights of the trip, with both the Ayasofya mosque
and blue mosque located on each corner. Entrance is free to both the mosques and they are absolutely stunning from the inside! A very serene and calming atmosphere compared to the hustle in the streets.

A must visit cafe has to be Seven hills, where we enjoyed some famous Turkish tea!

The last photo in this set has to be personal favourite!
Hope everyone enjoyed this short blog! Let me know in the comments if you’ve been to/ want to visit Istanbul!