The bus reaches Istanbul by way of a car ferry across the Sea of Marmara, ending our brief stay in Asia. We discover that there is a free minibus to the train station. In fact, it dumps us in the middle

[Folk-dancing in Istanbul. ]

of nowhere and we find that we have to get a tram. The queues at the station are completely random (a bit like the traffic), and we discover that we need to be somewhere else. The supplement for a "Tourist" class sleeper is £10 each.

We head from the train station to the Youth Hostel. It had many facilities, working less well than that. All the toilets and showers were blocked. The showers were the coldest I'd ever had.

[Bizarre hat dance. Grab the hat from the person in front of you and place it on your head. Repeat.]

We walked out of the hostel (through a street of kids trying to sell us things) into a crowd of people watching people dancing. It turned out to be the the fourth annual Sultanahmet Folk Festival. We watched Bulgarians, Egyptians, Macedonians and Slovenians doing their national dances. It was very impressive.

We then walked to Aya Sofia (built in AD 537, first as a church, then a Mosque and finally a museum), impressive, if crumbly. The Mosaic Gallery, up a big long spiral ramp, contains

[Folk dancers in their national dress in front of the Blue Mosque.]

the remains of three mosaics of the "Emperor next to his missus next to Christ" variety.

After climbing up Aya Sofia, we went under it - The Romans built a reservoir under Aya Sofia. A bit strange, but very impressive. Lots of

[Some of the 336 columns built by the Romans underneath Aya Sofya. Looks better enlarged.]

columns and fish.

We were both quite tired - we hadn't eaten since the previous day - so we got pizza for lunch from a nearby restaurant. We talked to a couple of Australians and found out more about the place. Exhausted, we rested in the hostel before dinner.Having found a restaurant and eaten, we went to see the dancing show, but it was too busy, We walked around Sultanahmet Square, and Iain was mesmerised by the fountain. We slept well in the hostel.