Thursday 20 September – a moggie, a museum and musing on the shortage of tourists.

After checking out of our hotel this morning, we wandered up through the Hippodrome (passing a pussy sitting on its motor scooter), past the Hagia Sophia and down to the Archaeological Museum.  Unfortunately, like many churches and museums in Istanbul it is undergoing renovation and much was off limits (including the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great) but there was enough to keep us enthralled for a couple of hours as we walked past well-presented and illustrated statues, tools, utensils, artefacts and other objects covering the Neolithic period to recent times and sourced from civilisations including Ionian, Egyptian, Persian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman.  Some of the exhibits date back about 8,000 years.

We then wandered back up towards the Hippodrome, stopping for lunch at a delightful open-air restaurant, pausing to photograph a police water-cannon and chat to its driver, then made our way back to our hotel to await transfer to the very plush Conrad Hilton Hotel, our first digs for our Turkish Odyssey tour that commences tomorrow morning.  The hotel, which is huge, is on an elevated position on the Taksim side of the water and we are on the ninth floor, with panoramic views across the Bosporus back to where we have spent the last couple of days. We had a briefing from the tour operator this evening and met our fellow-travellers – ten women, so John and Steve will be the only men on the tour.

One thing that has stood out over the last couple of days has been the low numbers of people in the Hippodrome.  On our previous visits it has almost been wall to wall but this time you could almost count the number of number of people and there might be only three or four tour groups over the entire expanse at any one time.  On the other hand, once you get away from the Hippodrome there are droves of people everywhere.  The locals have little reason to visit the Hippodrome, so we can only conclude that it is tourist numbers that are down significantly.  A great shame.  This is a wonderful city with an incredible history and the people are friendly and helpful - and love Australians.  Once again, events that are beyond the control of the people – terrorism, political wrestling matches – can have an impact on the reputation of their country and its desirability as a tourist destination.