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EUROPE: After three days of relax fun and nice food it was time to start acting a bit more like proper tourist! After arranging for a transfer to Sultanahmet we were on our way to one of the cradle of civilisation. Sultanahmet in fact is where all sights worth visiting are in Istanbul. This area in fact includes: the Topkapi Palace, Aya Sofya, the Hippodrome, the Cistern and the Blue Mosque - these places alone need more than a couple of days to be visited properly. If you add the two major bazaars (Gran Bazaar and Spices Bazaar), that are close by, you have the weekend sorted! Considering the concentration of places of interest is easy to assume that everything is geared toward tourism here - this is partially true but there are still plenty of locals around too. Prices in this part of town are twice and more than the Asian side of Istanbul - here you can find prices comparable to the UK, and sometimes even higher! But again this is not the case across the border, there are places a little hidden that charge normal Turkish prices.

Topkapi Palace

The first two days we focussed on visiting visiting and visiting ! It was very nice to see the enormous palace of the sultan (Topkapi) with the nicest bit being the Harem. As usual walking around in the September heat (29-30 C) is not easy, but with a water seller every corner is unlikely that you will be left thirsty. Fortunately the majority of sights are indoors so you don’t have to get on with the scalding sun. Tourists in Turkey can enjoy a high level of security, with a policeman (two or three) at every corner. In Sultanahmet there also a big yellow building with an armed police officer just underneath the sigh “Tourism Police”. Museum and sights are well kept but sometimes miss even the most elementary information in English, for this reason a paper guide or getting a local guide is recommended. For more information on this interesting place with photos and video have a look at this website.

Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque

Our flight is perfectly on time and in just under three hours we are underneath the blue Turkish sky. For me, as for a lot of people, first impression counts: and in this case it was a positive one. Once I crossed the plane door I was caressed by a wonderful hot hair, the sun was shining and the brightness is incredible. Once in the Airport building I was helped by very caring Turkish people that advised on how to get to the first hotel without being screwed up! On the bus from the airport we’ve been helped by both the driver (that didn’t speak English) as well as from a passenger that helped with the translation. The driver was so lovely to open the door for us just at the traffic light so we were very close to the hotel entrance.

Our Luggage on Turkish soil

This for me was one of the best welcome that I ever received. People even with little to no English at all have been incredibly helpful and nice with us. Maybe we were lucky but with a little haggling and nice chatting I believe that we’ve never been completely screwed in one entire week here.

Istanbul is simply huge; 11 million inhabitants for a city split between Europe and Asia. This place is very complex, there are so many mean of transports (ferry / metro / bus / funicular) and a variety of different areas that in order to comprehend its variety you need to travel a lot around. We’ve been lucky to decide to split our week between Asia and Europe. We started by staying in an hotel in Asia, in the locality of Dragos / Maltepe. This was our relaxing side of the trip, with no sightseeing, just relax and enjoy the hotel facilities.

The first mosque we came across.

ASIA: this side is clearly not the one frequented by tourists, after arriving we went for a 50min stroll around and we didn’t come across any other tourist! It was strange but not uncomfortable at all, locals were so not used to strangers that there was no attempt to approach us to promote or sell anything. We were the only one for about three days, three days of doing little and going out mostly for food. Yes, food is one of the highlights of this journey, Turkish cuisine is incredibly good: starting from the appetisers (Mezes) going all the way to the Turkish Delight (a variety of sheets and cookies typical from this part of the world). The Asian side is a residential area for local population and it is also where a number of small factories are based. Price wise it is cheap, dirt cheap - here you can get a two course dinner for a fiver and tea for 50p.

Prices mention above will result useful for future comparison ..

Sunset on the Bosphorus.

After weeks of training I thought that it would have been good to go on holiday straight after the Half-Marathon. And here we are – couple of weeks travelling between London and Istanbul. We started by going to the city crossed by the river Thames, and after a comfy train journey we started our “browsing” around. As usual we decided to reside in a different part of the big city, this time our accommodation was in Bayswater. The latter is a lovely residential area near Hyde Park - the main street is lively with restaurants shops and supermarket, while the residential part of it isuite and very Victorian.

After a wee stroll around the place we made our way to the East End, and area of London that we’ve never fully visited. We arrived at Canary Wharf station, to see the same skyscrapers that feature into “The Apprentice” but for our relief there was no sign of Sir Alan! The area is one of the financial hearts of London now but in the past the East End of Lonson was a totally different place. To find out more about the history of this area we visited the Docklands museum. The exposition even if called “Jack the Ripper and the East End” entailed a large section dedicated to the people living in what it used to be a very deprived and diverse part of town. This was the perfect spot for the first serial killer to indulge in violence and gory practices. The exhibition shows a variety of documents produces by the police at the time and few photographs and sketches. Overall an enjoyable visit, with interesting documents and reports not only about the over publicised murdered but also with interesting insight on how the East End of London would have looked linked in the late 1800s.

After an interesting dinner in a Cuban restaurant, we made our way back to Bayswater. We ended up in an “average” pub that we’ve chosen because I had a couple of TV screen showing the tennis - US Open final. I was very keen in witnessing Andy Murray first Grand Slam final. But for my dismay, the match didn’t go as planned. Roger Federer had an easy win over the Scot in three sets.

The second and last day in the English capital we indulged in an all-time Manuela’s favourite: Sightseeing bus tour. This one also included the cruise on the river Thames and some walk tour. One of the latter was the “Jack the Ripper Walk Tour” and how could we miss it. Barry, our guide/actor, brought us in five of the eight locations where the murders took place. He also enjoyed playing is part in telling us gruesome details and imitating (very convincingly) the serial killer.

Barry our guide for the Jack the Ripper Tour

In these days technology can be a very beneficial as well as real pain, but in events that involve a large number of people it really makes the difference. I cannot imagine what organise a marathon would have involved just five years ago. What I mean is that nowadays you do everything online: registration, check routes and maps – you get the confirmation or any changes via email. And more importantly just the day after the event results are posted on the organiser’s website.

I can only assume that in the past everything was issued by post and the results where available on the local newspaper (not totally sure how long after the race though!). There’s also to note that nowadays all runners are “electronically” tagged, in this way a computer will log the time of everyone. I believe that in the past there must have been a number of staff writing down Bib’s number and time and after the end of the race some (unlucky) guys needed to go through the painstaking exercise of matching start and arrival time of all participants.

In other words in the past I’m sure that to organise an event such a marathon you would have needed a lot of people involved in the organisation. Now on the other hand the IT systems are facilitating this all process by making everyone’s life easier.

Another development is the introduction of digital photography applied to mass sport! In fact photographers throughout the course are taking pictures of athletes and at the end of the day they copy all the best ones into a central computer that will identify and sort every photo by Bib numbers. In this way every runner can easily find and buy their photos without having to go through thousands of files.

On a personal note my run time has been officially confirmed to be a healthy: 1:45:49 - yes I know it is 4secs off my “manual” time. Also my final position was 1729, pretty slow eh – but if you consider the 7000+ athletes that completed the half marathon is not too bad. I’m glad with it and already planning for my next run.

Yes, I’m back. After surviving the worst summer that the UK has ever seen I’m back with vengeance. This time is a sporting challenge, this Sunday I’ll be running the Glasgow half-marathon. You’ll probably remember my first step toward running last May. Well this time around is not going to be a team effort but just me and 13.1 miles of city streets, parks and curbs. When I say me it doesn’t mean that I’ll be running all alone, quite the opposite, according to the organisers there are going to thousands runners taking the street of the Scottish biggest city
In order to keep you posted on how I’m doing I’ve set up this Tracking Web Page. As usual technology an more precisely gadget are very useful in these situations. From the list on the right you can pick up a couple of training session and from Sunday lunch time I’ll upload the result of the half-marathon. I hope that all this will make you take your trainers and go for a run …..