I didn’t find we were hassled in the bazaar in Istanbul, and people were very friendly. We ducked into a tea shop to escape a heavy rain shower and the owner and fellow guests were incredibly nice, bringing us more and more Turkish delight and apple tea and refusing payment until we insisted. Hagia Sophia is a must, and the Blue Mosque. We loved just strolling through the streets. One mistake we made, again in a downpour, was to take a taxi instead of the tram back to our hotel. It took forever, while the trams whizzed by. The traffic in Istanbul is legendary. We also took the ferry up the Bosporus, which was my favourite thing of all. At some stop vendors got on selling yogurt topped with powdered sugar, which was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. To stand on top of Rumei Hisari fortress, with the Black Sea in front, Europe to the west and Asia to the East, was magical. It’s the ordinary commuter ferry.