I think they have been building us up to this. Each day we seem to walk further and further, up and down more hills. This is a good because we continue to eat too much food and are given scrumptous sweets by people on the street and when we stop for tea.

We took a historical walk around the city comparing older Ottoman style buildings with those from the 19th and 20th century. The Ottoman style encorporated upper story windows that extended outward from the building to catch the breeze. The earliest buildings were built of wood and there is a tall stone firetower because fire was a major threat. Public buildings are created of marble, cement, and such but still have some of the same architectural features, the later ones encorporating elements from the west. As we walked, there were many narrow, twisty, two-way, one lane streets. People walk down these streets and then move to the sidewalk when a car comes along. We ran into a film crew as they were filming down one of these quaint streets.

We took the tunnel up to the Gelata tower, it is the second oldest subway built in the world, and thank god it is there. This is a very steep hill. We drank Raki, a tasty anise flavored drink, in the hotel next to the tower and we had an excellent view. Galata was a Genoese (Italian city-state) colony from the Byzantine time into the Ottoman.