Holiday in Kiev and Istanbul

During September, we travelled to Kiev for Andrew and Tanya's wedding. After a slow start (tip for parents - avoid 1:30am flight departures where possible) we had a great time. Kiev is an interesting city - the years of Soviet influence are much in evidence but there is a sense of change about the place and western influence is well underway. Of particular interest, perhaps more for David, was the tendancy of Ukrainian girls to wear incredibly short mini-skirts and very high stilletos!

The wedding was fantastic, the bride beautiful and the groom scrubbed up ok as well!!

Much fun was had by all. We got to meet many of Andrew's Australian friends as well as his parents and their friends, quite a large Adelaide crowd meeting in Kiev! We also met Tanya's family and many of her friends from Ukraine, all very friendly with a great sense of humour. It was also an opportunity to catch up with many friends we hadn't seen in a while, in particular Andrew and Cathy Clennett who we hadn't seen for two years.

Sight seeing in Kiev could be a bit challenging at times, the city is not very well suited to pushing around the Phil and Ted's double pram and the tourist industry is not a particularly well oiled machine yet. We mostly took it easy, we found a park near the hotel with a good playground and other amusements for the kids.

We attempted to go on a cruise on the Dnipro river but it could never seem to get enough passengers to satisfy the captain to depart (not helped by the fact that people gave up and left - as we did - while new people got on). But we did get the captain to get this great photo.

After saying goodbye to old friends and new, we departed for a few days in Istanbul. We didn't realise how big the city was but it is a fantastic place. We stayed in a small hotel near the Sultanahmet mosque and felt quite at home with the Sydney, Down Under, and Southern Cross Hostels right around the corner! There are a lot of aussies travelling through Istanbul, not surprising considering the historical connections between the countries. We found that there are many carpet shops in Istanbul and every trick in the book was used to get you into the shop to look at their range of carpets!

The hotel breakfast room had a great view of the Sea of Marmara as well as the Sultanahmet mosque and Haghia Sophia so it was a pleasant start to the day.

We had a very enjoyable stay, taking in the sights and took a cruise up the Bosphorus.

We also discovered some of the playgrounds in Istanbul to keep the kids amused.

After four nights, we were ready to get home after a fantastic holiday.