Day three was Monday which meant most museums were closed, so we jumped on the public ferry up the Bospherus to the Black Sea. It was an interesting trip which demonstrated how big Istanbul is. We passed another beautiful palace (Dalmabahce Palace), home to the most last sultan, built in 19th century, old fortresses, and of course lots of cargo ships coming and going from the Black Sea. After 1.5 hours we reached Anadolu Kavagi, which was a small fishing village turned tourist village (dozens of seafood restaurants and pushy hustlers). We climbed the hill behind the village to the fortress which in itself was average, but had great views of the Black Sea. After yet another kebab, we went exploring and found a Military base, then caught the ferry about 3/4 back to where we started. We got off early so we could go to Taksim square which was busy with traffic and didn’t have much to offer appearance-wise. After a coffee at Starbucks ( yes I know, Starbucks), we sauntered down the main road (Istiklal Cad) and windowed shopped the high-end labels and ate another kebab (!) and started the one hour walk home, helped along by a corn cob each from a street vendor.

Last day in Istanbul (phew!), we really needed to get our money’s worth on this museum card. The mosaics museum was amazing, such incredible art, very well displayed, dating back to 500 AD. The archeology museum was interesting, very old pieces from the Hattite empires, a mummy, and some huge and impressive marble sarcophagi, wow!
Unfortunately the museum of Transport and Science was closed (not consistent with the ‘museums closed on Monday’s rule!).
We walked to the Suleymaniye Mosque which we had spotted from a distance and had heard was even more amazing inside – unfortunately we hit prayer time, and despite waiting half hour with a Turkish tea we still couldn’t go inside.
We pushed on to the ferry terminal to make our way to Chora church, an 11th century church located in the western districts (took 2 hours to get to) that was covered (literally) with gold mosaics. There are still a substantial number of mosaics left, and they were incredible to see! This church was turned into a mosque as well, but is now a museum.
With all the energy we could muster, we made it to our last stop, the museum of Whirling Dervishes – wish we could see one in real life. That night we didn’t have kebabs for dinner, instead branched out, spent a bit more and had Turkish stew ( or similar).

We rolled into bed that night, exhausted and looking forward to picking up our rental car the next day ( but also feeling a bit nervous about Turkish drivers)