Alsguth Travel Blog

Hi! We have had several nice days in a row on the cruise, seeing Monaco, Eze, Toulon, France & today Barcelona! Monaco was interesting - we saw the cathedral where Grace Kelly married Prince Ranier, the houses where her daughters still live (was that a Princess we saw getting into a dark car with a hunky bodyguard in the following car?!?!), her grave, a lovely garden and many high-end cars! After Monaco was ancient Eze - this was a quaint little town on a hill.  Lots of shops, a garden - with a lot of cacti - this was surprising! and a castle ruin. Small change of plans in the ship's itinerary - we were supposed to stop at Marseille, but there was a workers' strike so we stopped at Toulon instead.  This town is a major place of the Royal French Navy - there were all sorts of battleships, aircraft carriers, etc in the waters right near our ship. We did a short walking tour of the city.  mostly they saved big doors before the German army could come destroy them in the w...

 Hi!! We are out exploring again! Today we did a crazy tour of Istanbul - we saw a lot and still BARELY made a dent in this amazing, ancient city. The city was founded as Byzantium in 7th century B.C. In the third century C.E. the Roman Emperor Constantine came and called the city "New Rome" later called "Constantinople".  In 1930 the city's name was officially changed to Istanbul. The city of Istanbul is in both Europe and Asia, divided by the Bosporus Strait.  We were on the Europe side. Since we had only one day we hired a guide to take us to the important sites. Mr. Tekand was very knowledgeable about the history of the city and the sights.   We started our day at the hippodrome and went to the Topkapi Palace from there. Some highlights: This is the Spoonmaker's diamond ... 86 carat. The palace is a museum with all sorts of artifacts - the treasury (hence the diamond above), clothing - only XXXL size: A letter written by the Prophet Muhammad. There were ...