From Cannakale we drove to Istanbul, which was largely an easy drive until we reached the mayhem of Istanbul and then the tiny streets of Balat. We stayed in an eclectic colourful tall house in Balat, an area of narrow cobbled streets with a vintage and antique vibe. The colourful houses of Balat are a tourist hotspot and the neighbouring house to ours was particularly popular due to apparently being featured in  a Turkish soap opera. The local cats continued to accompany us on our travels and can be seen on nearly every street. We enjoyed wandering the streets of Balat and living in our temporary colourful home of many stairs. I led everyone on a slightly pointless search to find some colourful steps to find the reality not as exciting as the Instagram version! 

The food and drink of Istanbul was one of our highlights, Phoebe has written more about the culinary delights here. 

We caught the tram into the Sultanahmet area to window shop in the Grand Bazaar, one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. The girls were disappointed with the offerings but found what they were looking for (Sanrio accessories) in nearby shops. We visited the Blue Mosque and learnt about Islam. Myself and Craig had been to Istanbul before, in the years BK (before kids). This time round we noticed how expensive the main sights had become, most of them costing around 100 Euros for a family to enter so realising that our budget would not get us many palaces or towers we decided to focus our money on the gastronomic delights.

Using the metro we walked around Taksim square, we found this side of Istanbul to be less interesting and full of generic city shops so we walked back over the Galata bridge to Sultanhamet, watching the fishermen on our way.

Istanbul is split by the Bosphourus straight which forms a continental boundary between Europe and Asia. Our journey out of Istanbul involved catching a ferry to the airport on the Asian side to fly to our next destination – Hurghada in Egypt. This gave us the unusual opportunity of setting foot in three continents in one day! From Europe to Asia by sea then by air to Africa.