Up in the morning and off to the spice bazaar! Much, much better than the Grand Bazaar - huge piles of bulk spices everywhere, at ridiculously cheap prices. Saffron seemed to be the biggest bargain - at least an order of magnitude cheaper than it is in the U.S. Lots of other foodstuffs for sale as well. I just wandered around for the first half an hour or so breathing in all the wonderful spice scents - and did eventually get around to buying some stuff. Here's a picture:

Then it was time to get on the boat for the cruise up the Bosphorus. Being on the water in a moving boat was very pleasant - a good antidote for Istanbul's heat and humidity. We motored past various civic edifices, Dolmabahce Palace, the more recent sultans' palace:

the Ortaköy mosque:

rich folks' houses:

and Rumeli Hisari, a 12-century fortress guarding the Black Sea entrance.

We didn't get to go quite all the way into the Black Sea, as it's a restricted military area (unless you're a cargo ship with a Turkish captain).

After the boat ride we had lunch in a little resort town near the Black Sea entrance (apparently it's a popular place for locals to take visiting relatives). I can see why - lots of nice seafood restaurants. We had some very yummy mussels, calamari and various kinds of fish.

Back on the bus, and back into hot, sticky Istanbul for a look at a few more mosques.

Outside the Sulemaniye Mosque there's a small graveyard where various local heroes are interred. Many of the headstones sport the headgear favored by the deceased - I saw numerous turbans, and the occasional fez:

Some views of the Suleymaniye Mosque, and a Roman aqueduct spanning a busy Istanbul street

Finally it was time for our flight into central Turkey. Istanbul Airport is definitely in no danger of being over-airconditioned, as it was just as hot and sticky inside as it was outside (and inside there aren't any cooling breezes). After sweating around for over an hour we finally got to board the plane - once we'd positively identified our luggage. Apparently the authorities are much more security-conscious on interior flights than international flights - we went through two security checks before getting our boarding passes, and then before actually getting on the plane, we had to point to our various pieces of luggage sitting out on the tarmac before they'd actually load them onto the plane. I guess they didn't want us to lose our acclimatization, as they kept the temp on the plane well in the "Istanbul-warm" zone. It was quite a relief to finally disembark in Kayseri (perhaps better known by its more ancient name, Caesarea).

Onto yet another bus for the trip out to Avanos. By this time it was dusk, so the Kapadokyan scenery would have to wait for the morning. Upon arriving at the hotel we found out that there was a worrisome report of possible thunderstorms in the area where we were supposed to view the eclipse the next day, so they were pushing up our wakeup call to 5:30 (agh!) to give us extra time to relocate, if needed.

While Avanos was as arid as Istanbul was humid, it was still pretty warm, so we were disappointed that the hotel didn't have air conditioning. We were left with the choice of being stuffy or opening the (screenless) windows. We opted for the latter, and were treated to quite a display of the local insect fauna in our room. So, grumpy, itchy, too warm, and mindful of the fact that 5:30 was only a few hours away, I tried to get some sleep, serenaded by the insect chorus (hopefully mostly) outside the window.

On to the eclipse!