Planet Ruby Starrs

We had a really excellent day exploring Istanbul. It's over 25 years since I went to Istanbul on a long weekend trip with somebody that I thought was my friend at the time. But with with hindsight.... Well that's another unimportant story for another time... All that time ago I did have a brilliant time and loved the city. I loved the mix of east meets west - It left me intending to return sooner than later so I was really looking forward to revisiting.   I was a bit unsure about how Dr Fred would take to the place because it is enormous, it's bustling, it's noisy, it's smelly. There are lots of exciting backstreets and of course there are a lot of tourists - And I was determined to visit the Grand Bazaar... Istanbul didn't disappoint - but I have to say it was a very different city to how it had been all those years ago. It seemed even bigger, and was definitely more full of visitors. I had started with a plan that packed the ...

The dance beach got quite busy... mainly locals swimming.  The water was incredibly clear and so many shades of green and blue. There was very little shade so after a while we headed up the path back on to the main drag to look for some lunch.   The old town and immediate surrounding area is one big eating area punctuated by souveiner shops... lots of 'authentic' Game of Thrones tat... I did go in to see if they had the wine glasses- which are like the ones I bought in Prague but they were only offering seriously nasty plastic - halloween like- goblets and tankards which at €98 each felt a little bit excessive.  There was an amazing sweet shop though... might have to revisit... Light lunch was easy to find.. the bakeries offer such delicious looking snacks... we probably spent longer choosing than eating.  Sunny spots to sit and picnic while people watching are plentiful as are the people to watch.  It is, however, quite difficult to...

On the way home.. cruising across the north Atlantic via the Faroe Islands. We docked at Torshavn - a very pretty little town which is the 'capital' of the Faroes. The Island is part of Denmark but seems to look after itself.  It is famous for its beautuful red painted parliament buildings sitting on the quayside with stunning turf rooves - Tingane. Turf rooves are not uncommon across the town as we discovered when we went exploring.  We checked in the tourist information where we given 2 maps one detailed of town centre and the second a wider view of the surrounding area.... I mention this only because once we did start exploring in spite of having maps we got hopelessly lost and in fact spent a good hour in the suburbs of Torshavn trying to find coast path - more of that later.... We also asked about the viking sundial... of which the tourist person had no idea - but helpfully googled it and we found a approximate possible location.  This was near the Tinganes - meani...