Over the Chrismas period we took a break from the lifestyle of traveling and living in an "expedition truck" and rented an apartment in the Taksim area of Istanbul. Our son Brendon and his girlfriend Jessie came down from Berlin and we spent the time together doing a few of the usual tourist things and catching up on family.

The weather gods were kind to us and we had a series of sunny but cool days and we used them to explore some of the well known Istanbul attractions including the manditory boat trip down the Bosphorus. Though to be honest I enjoyed just people watching and absorbing the life of the city rather than lining up for the famous attractions.

We were all curious to see how Istanbul celebrated Chrismas and were not at all surprised to find that it was just "another day" with pretty much every shop and business establishment open.

We celebrated Chrismas with the usual exchange of gifts (though on the evening of the 24th in keeping with the German tradition) and on Chrismas day we visited a local tattoo parlor and all got small tattoos to celebrate our time together (or maybe for some other reason - the why of it was never really clear). That would certainly rank as one of our more unusual Christmas day exepriences.

After our visitors left we moved back into the truck at that waterfront parking lot for one night and then this morning got underway early to be ahead of the rush hour traffic.

We are now on our way to the Greek border and Athens for some more sightseeing.


We camped in a large cleared area just off the highway about 40 km short of the town of Ipsala.