The Spice Bazaar (Misir Carsisi)

The Spice Bazaar (or Egyptian bazaar, Misir Carsisi) is at walking distance from our hotel. Photo to the right(by Nico) at one of the entrances. At the bazaar lots of spices are sold indeed (photos below).
We buy some apple tea (for Eva at home) and dried fruits.

Beyoglu: Taksim, Istiklal Caddesi

Then we go to the other side of the Golden Horn, to Beyoglu. We take the tram from Eminönü(photo below)to Kabatas across the Galatabridge.(The map of the ANWB-Extra guide lets the tram stop in Eminönü, but it goes on actually! Across the bridge and more or less along the Bosphorus towards Dolmabahçe)
First we have a look whether Dolmabahçe might be open after all (like the Yedikulefortress) but it is closed.(the next day we will visit)

It takes a while to locate the entrance of the funicular railway (Funikuler) from Kabatas to the Taksim Square (walk back a little from the tramstop Kabatas along the sidewalk on the landside of the road). Once there it only takes ten minutes and we're at the Taksim Square, where the saturday before there was a big demonstration.( day 2 or YouTube)
We head for Beyoglu's best known shoppingstreet, Istiklal Caddesi. By foot, as the nostalgic tram just left and is so full people seem glued to the windows. We don't want to join this.
In Istiklal Caddesi we find a Starbucks (rare in the Netherlands but loved by Roos), where we take a break (it is quite warm, around 26°C ) and read about the area.

Photos top and left: Galip Dede Caddesi, south of Istiklal Caddesi, is a nice street with lots of musical instrument stores.
We are getting closer to the Galata Tower.

Photo top: a theatre company in Istiklal Caddesi. Photo left, below: there are lots of reknown brands, like Lush (on which Eva has a crush at the moment and which we don't have in our hometown.). Photo next to it: Çiçekpassaji, a former covered flower-market, now a passageway with lots of cafés and restaurants (we bought some delightful lokum at the shop near the entrance, to eat at home)

Photo's below: the famous Pera Palas hotel where travellers that arrived on the Orient Express like Agatha Christie and lots of other celebrities( Greta Garbo, Josephine Baker, Atatürk to name a few) have been staying. The restoration works are nearly finished. (I asked when and the answer was "Tomorrow").

The Galata Tower

We had seen it often already (like from the hotelwindow in Roos' and Eva's room) but at last up close: the Galata Tower! Built as a watchtower for Pera (the European district) in 1348 by the Genoan inhabitants of Istanbul.
We climbed it (well 'climbed': most of it is by escalator). Below the movie, (Dutch)comments by Roos (on YouTube there is a second version as well)
Also some more photos taken from the Galata Tower, including explanation.

Above a couple atmospheric photos taken north of the Galata Tower. We went back towards Istiklal Caddesi because the kids had noticed Tünel Gedici, a street where they insisted on having dinner.
We ended up at KV. (before Istiklal Caddesi to the left there's an entrance gate)Trendy and quite expensive compared to what we are used to now. But very good food(as usual) with pretty names. Eva orders a"True Love". And nice: we order just one tiramisu for both kids(because they ate a lot already, not so much because of the price) and we get a double dose(photo below).

Trendy dinner in Tünel Gedici at KV