Exploring Istanbul in 3 days

Hello, Everyone!

I am Hina. I am an undergraduate student studying in Kayseri, Turkey. I originally belong to Pakistan and came to Turkey about 2 years ago for my undergraduate studies. In these 2 years, I never got the chance to visit Istanbul. My friends always used to say that I should visit Istanbul. It's really beautiful. However, due to my busy university schedule, I never got the chance to visit it. 

A few days ago, I finally got to visit the city. It was summer time and my summer vacations had started. I decided to stay in Turkey during the summers in order to work on some research projects with my professors. I had some free time and so the first thing that I did was to plan my visit to Istanbul. I had a university friend living there with her family and so I decided to stay at her house for 3 days and explore the city with her. I took a plane to Istanbul on one Thursday morning and returned back to Kayseri on Saturday night. As the inter city flights are very cheap, I decided to take the plane to Istanbul from Kayseri as on the bus, it would take about 12 hours to reach there. However, with the plane, things got much easier and the flight only took about 1 hour and 10 minutes. It was quicker and easier and so when I reached the city, I wasn't tired and could go on exploring the city.  

My first day in Istanbul was pretty awesome. I reached Ataturk airport around 9 a.m and from there I took the metro and the tram to get to my friend's house. The metro and the tram system of Istanbul was very easy to understand and easily accessible via the airport. My friend lived close to the tram station and when I reached there, she was already there to take me to her house. I went to her house and stayed there for a while. Later, I went to explore the city with her.

The first place that I visited in the city was the Sultanahmet area. It is a famous touristic area in Istanbul which contains the famous blue mosque, Hagia Sophia and many other historical places and buildings. The place had a lot of tourists from many parts of the worlds i.e. China, Europe, Pakistan etc. Most of the people there spoke English and so it was very easy to get around. Over there, I visited the blue mosque and an underground tunnel that contained medusa head. I found the place to be very beautiful and culturally rich. The experience was fantastic. 

After staying in Sultanahmet area for about 2 hours, I went to the Galata tower. I took the tram and it dropped me close to the tower. From there, I had to walk a bit towards the tower. It was a nice walk as the streets were very beautiful with a lot of shops and restaurants. I went to the top of the tower. The view from there was amazing. We could see almost the entire city from the top. Also, strong winds kept on blowing at the top that made the weather quite nice and pleasant. I stayed there for a while enjoying the beautiful view of the city. 

At night, I went to the sea side. There I sat down on a bench with my friend enjoying the beautiful sea view and the Bosphorus bridge view. There were ferries in the sea with a lot of people. The ferry went under the Bosphorus bridge and also went to the islands. However, as it was pretty late at night, I decided not to take the ferry. Instead, I walked on the Galata bridge. There were a lot of fishermen there trying to catch fishes in the water. It was nice to just walk there and enjoy the scenic view. 

The 2nd day of my stay in Istanbul was quite good as well. Before coming to Istanbul, I had planned to visit an adventure park there. So, all my day was spent in the adventure park. The park was far from my friend's house and so I had to change 2 buses to get there. The park was located in an area far from the city i.e in a forest. It was beautifully built with a lot of nice stuff to do. I went to the high rope park with my friend. The experience was unique. 

As I enjoy going to parks more than visiting places, the third and the last day of my stay in Istanbul was spent in a water park. It was my first time in a water park. The park was quite big. I took the slides and did swimming. It was very enjoyable. Time over there passed very quickly. From there, I went directly to the airport as my flight was at night time and I had stayed at the park until evening. 

(Above pic is taken from the internet)

The 3 days that I spent in Istanbul were pretty awesome. Even though I didn't visit many places there, I had a lot of fun there. Istanbul is a very big city with a lot of places to visit and fun things to do. I will definitely plan my visit there again to get to know more about the city and visit the beautiful historical sites there. 

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