Day 4 Last day in Istanbul

The weather cannot be nice everyday so today is a rainy one.  The grass is very green here and the fruit trees are in bloom, there are flowers everywhere and all this beauty needs water.  Today is the day it gets it. 

We have just spent our last day with Jorg and Maria.  We met them near their place where we got in a taxi and went to an area recommended by a friend of Jorg.  I must confess that I have forgotten it's name.  It is right by the water of the Golden Horn.  There again, there are rows of merchants of all kinds but it is famous for it's potato specialty called Kumpir.  They bake a gigantic potato, open it out in the center and then with a knife, they start mashing the potato keeping it attached at the bottom.  They had salt and cheese to the mash and, always with the knife, they mix thoroughly until the cheese is melted.  Now  comes the time to add what you prefer.  There is a row of things to choose from such as diced peppers, diced tomatoes, shredded carrots and many more ingredients.  Unfortunately, we went and had breakfast by the water so we were too full to have one just then.  It starting to rain heavily and we made our way back to Jorg and Maria's place not realizing that we had now missed our opportunity to have the famous Kumpir.  Hopefully, they will go today since they only leave Istanbul tomorrow.  As for us, we can only read about how delicious it was when Maria writes about it.

Later the same day we decided to try to get into the Basilica Cistern one more time. As usual there was a long line at the ticket wicket, but since it was our last chance, we stood in line and waited. To our surprise the line moved quite fast and in about 15 min. We were at the wicket and down the stairs into the cistern. As the guy in the hotel had told us, most very old houses in Istanbul have a cistern below the house which collects and stores water. The one at the hotel was below the lobby area and had an adobe-like domed roof which was visible through the glass floor. In contrast, the one below the basilica was huge, a few hundred meters in each direction. There was also a story about a couple of Medusa-like characters that lived in the water of the cistern, and interestingly during the excavation of a section a couple of huge stone heads were found.

Later in the evening Jorg consulted his ever helpful smartphone, and found a highly rated restaurant for our last dinner together. The meal at the Amedros was excellent, and a fitting end to our stay in Istanbul. We said our goodbyes and took the tram to our respective hotels.