Saying goodbye to Istanbul was a mixed bag of feelings. On the one hand it felt good to be catching a plane to St. Etienne, France but, on the other, there was a tinge of nostalgia in my leaving, as six months is a period of time long enough for the city's charms to grow on you.

As part of my goodbye ritual, I saved the last two days of my stay to go visit the Grand Bazaar and the Palace of Topkapi.

The pictures below are shown roughly in the order they were taken.

To view larger versions of the photos just click on any of them and keep clicking "next".