May 27th & 28th, 2010. After we left Turkey we flew into Venice, Italy to catch our 12 day cruise on the Crown Princess. We spent 2 days in Venice. What a lovely place. We spent all day walking around and enjoying the canals and all the beautiful architecture. Here is a picture of Gene, Bonnie & Trish, outside the cruise ship.

We had to catch a shuttle from the cruise ship to the main area of Venice. Here is a picture from the shuttle of Venice.

There are canals all through the city. I love the apartments with flower baskets.

And of course you have to dry sheets!

What would it be without gondolas! They are like taxi cabs in New York!

There are so many sculptures. Here I am checking out a few. That’s Neptune in my line of vision.

Gene trying to cool off with a bottle of beer. He tried a beer from everywhere we went.

And what would it be without at least one picture of St Marks Square.

On our last day Gene decided he wanted an oil painting.

On our first night in Istanbul we wandered the streets around our hotel. It was the only day that we had to wear jackets. Wasn’t very cold, but a chill. We stopped at this outside restaurant to have a drink and there was a fiddler walking around. We talked to the couple that was sitting across from us. They were from New Jersey and heading out the next day to go out on a yacht for a week. The fiddler put down his fiddle and got us to dance with him!

This is a picture of me on the rooftop of our hotel with the Blue Mosque in the background. We were so close to this mosque we could throw a rock and hit it! The bad part of being that close to a mosque is when they start the recording that calls you to prayer. They have speakers attached to the roof so everyone can hear it and it lasts about 5 minutes. This was a shocker our first morning. It goes off at 4:30 am every day.

One of the most popular Mosque’s in Istanbul is Haiga (eye-a) Sophia. It is now a museum.

The Galata Bridge is a favorite spot for fishermen. Below the bridge is a mass of restaurants where you can sit inside or out. I love this picture with a Mosque in the background.

Here is another view of the fishermen with the restaurants below. When we were sitting there eating we can see the fish being reeled up towards the lucky fisherman.

The bathrooms in Europe are called Water Closets. They look like our "restrooms," unless you happen to come across one that is a hole in the ground surrounded by porcelain. Then you just squat and go!

One evening we had dinner at an outside restaurant that had a free Whirling Dervish Dancer show. You are just hypnotized watching him dance in a circle.

Before the men and women can go into the Mosque to pray they need to wash. They have washing areas outside for this purpose.

This picture is what they called a New Mosque, even though it was built in 1597!

We walked around the infamous spice market and bought some fabulous gifts of exotic spices.

We took a tour of the Underground Cistern. Wow!. Wet, dark, and damp, but amazing!

We took a ferry along the Boshporus Straight that takes you all the way out to the Black Sea. It makes a few stops along the way and you get to see some amazing sites. It ends in Anadula where it sits for a few hours and you can walk around town, have lunch, shop, etc. We hiked up to a crumbled castle that had a fantastic view of the Black Sea.