Topkapi Palace

We finally headed over to Topkapi Palace the next day. We weren't quite expecting the 1.5 hour line, but the kids had a good time playing in the courtyard.

We pretended that the boys were Ottoman sultans and they got to pick out their outfits, their rooms, etc. I think these sultans would have turned the place upside down however.

Next up the boys and I had a rendevouz at the Turkish bath (Evaëlle was too little to go unfortunately).

Getting ready to go. Jonas had suddenly turned into our own personal Miley Cyrus.

The kids absolutely loved the Hammam. We hung out in the hot steamy rooms on the marble. Actually, the boys spent most of the time hanging out by cold water basins using the metal bowls to pour freezing cold water on themselves to compensate for it being "too hot." After about 45 minutes we went and each had a full body massage on marble slabs. We then dried off and enjoyed some hot apple tea to complete our experience. 

After that we visited the King Suleyman  mosque.

We enjoyed a bean dinner in front of the mosque

Creepy doll heads

Stray cats. Kind of. These were the best cared-for stray cats I had ever seen. People left out food and even built little cat houses for them. The same thing for the dogs. Most of them had tags in their ears indicating that they had been vaccinated and were safe to pet. Apparently Turks feel like it is unhygienic to keep animals inside their homes, so the take care of the collectively outside. My kind of pet ownership. Jonas was especially excited to pet them and honed his cat-petting skills throughout our trip--the part after we stopped saying "Don't pet it; you'll get a disease!"