Anyway, as the Bayram holiday lasts 4 days from Monday - Thursday, the government made Friday as a national holiday too. And made public transport half price for Monday - Thursday! So my language school is taking a break for a week, lots of shops are closed, and people are enjoying spending time with their families (or sneaking in a holiday somewhere).
We've mostly been doing the usual routine here - Turkish studying, trips to the local playground, etc. But we took a half day today to go to Emirgan Park for the first time.
Emirgan Park is now officially my new favourite place in Istanbul. It's one of the largest public parks in Istanbul (117 acres according to Wikipedia) and is just outside the main city area, which meant that we had to get the metro to the nearest stop then walk half an hour. Unfortunately, it's on the side of a huge hill (like most parks here). But, having learned from our Üsküdar picnic attempt a couple of weeks back (where we walked all the way up a steep hill only to find there was nowhere to sit, so walked back down the hill, only for it to start raining as we got to the bottom), we started off at the top of Emirgan Park.
Our first stop was, of course, the children's playground, before we started to explore the park.
We then slowly wended our way through the park, which is full of random cool things. Like pavilions - there are three Ottoman pavilions here that were built in the 1800s.
The White Pavilion. The other two are the Yellow Pavilion and Pink Pavilion.
There were quite a few fountains around. We made up for the one that J couldn't climb into when we found some mini-fountains that were perfect for J to investigate.
There are lots of tulip references in the park too as Emirgan Park hosts a famous tulip festival every April, which is why the 'I' and 'S' of 'Istanbul' in the photo below make a tulip shape.
This park looked so much fun. Unfortunately J is nowhere near old enough for me to use him as an excuse to play on it myself.
Half way down, the Bosphorus can just be seen through the trees
As well as wandering around and seeing all the fountains, ponds, random sculptures and flowers, we also managed to pick up some conkers. They had already started falling from the trees (which felt slightly incongruous as it isn't exactly feeling much like any autumn we're used to yet!) and J enjoyed collecting them and wandering around with one firmly clutched in each hand. We finished with a quick picnic before heading home.
It was lovely to get outside, see trees and enjoy some fresh air. J enjoyed himself thoroughly too - in fact, he tired himself out so much that keeping him awake on the bus and metro home ready for his afternoon nap back at our flat was quite an effort.
Definitely on my list of places to visit again!
