Today was supposed to be an easy walking day as compared to yesterday. Yeh right! 15 thousand steps later and that included 2 hours on a boat sitting down. Today turned out to be basically a church day. We are talking Greek Orthodox, Albanian, Balkin and a couple other offshoots of Greek Orthodox that I can’t remember. All these churches are located in a very old sections of Istanbul with narrow, cobblestone streets filled with speeding motorcycles and cars that don’t care if you are walking in the street because there is no sidewalk. It was a very eclectic neighborhood that appears to be going through gentrification.

After walking through these neighborhoods forever we stopped at an outdoor cafe and I had coffee that was made with pistachios. Sounds strange but it was delicious. Apparently it is a regional speciality called menengic or Kurdish coffee.

The first church we tried to enter was the Patriarchal Church of St. George. The Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church is like our Pope. In fact Pope Francis even came to this church to visit and bowed to the Patriarch and Catholics all around the world got upset. Being the humble man that he is, it did not surprise me at all that Pope Francis would do that. We had to come back to this church because the service was about to start and lasts over 3 hours. When we did return everyone was required to go through a screening machine as the church had been bombed by terrorists in the past.

Next we went to a Bulgarian Church which basically is an off shoot of the Greek Orthodox. We were in the Church when the Easter Service started. It is called the “Iron Church” and is the world’s only surviving iron church and is 125 years old. It was one of the first prefabricated buildings in the world and was shipped down the Danube River and the Bosporous.

The last church of the day was an Albanian church that was hidden behind a steel door. I never expected something as beautiful.

Next stop was the Spice Market for lunch and then off to the boat for a cruise around the Bosporus. I know that sounds easy but traffic in Istanbul (especially the old sections) is gridlock. They have a fabulous mass transit system but no one seems to use it other than tourists. I am sure that Easter Sunday added to the traffic but it was really ridiculous.

We finished with dinner on our own with 6 other travel mates. Food was great and a wonderful view of the harbor from the second floor window.