Miniaturk with our mini Delfi

the entrance of the open air museum

on the model of the Bosphorus Bridge

Today we went to Miniaturk, a place where you can see models of major Turkish historical attractions. It is by the Golden Horn and on a not-too-hot summers day it can be one of the best things to do with your family. As you approach each model, you show the ticket and the machine there with a funny accent starts telling you the history, location and function of the building. It was fun! It was a bit disappointing not to see many major attractions of Izmir, my hometown, but who knows maybe I missed a couple of them. Also, I think they could've come up with more interesting souvenir ideas but they had the usual souvenirs unlike the ones at the Topkapi Palace souvenir shop. The Chrystal museum was also quite interesting! We went there by taking a ferry from Uskudar to Sutluce and by taking a minibus for 2 minutes from the ferry station. Unfortunately, on the way back I got sick, so we had to take a taxi back home but it was nice to watch the sunset on Golden Horn. As some of you might know the Golden Horn is called 'golden horn' because it looks like a horn at sunset (and colour of gold of course) and another story is that the Byzantians threw their golden stuff into the  Golden Horn just before the Turks conquered Istanbul. It might be an urban myth but at some point I heard that the Japanese suggested that they would  clean whatever is lying under the Golden Horn as long as they got everything they found but of course the Turkish authority (whoever that is!) did not allow this bargain ;)

Oh, what is this?

It is a bit prickly :)

mother & daughter

enjoying sun and grass :)