Sultanahmet tulips

By Saturday, the first group of tulips were firmly out, which I was very, very excited about. (As it turns out, so are all the tourists, but I'm less thrilled about those crowds.) Because we already had to go down to the Grand Bazaar to get my ring sized down, I convinced Cagatay that we should walk around Sultanahmet checking out all the flowers.

We started out near the Hagia Sophia, where there's a bit of greenery across the street at the Mehmet Akif Ersoy park. While there were some nice beds, most of the tulips there weren't out yet, so it was mostly ground-cover flowers (petunias, I think) with a few vibrant daffodils. We headed next for Topkapi Palace, following the crowds, where we found beautiful pink tulips lining the pathway, though in places they were a little sparse. But the best show was at Gulhane Park, where we found the most gorgeous pink tulips, which appeared to be two-toned in the light. They were dazzling, and my photos are barely doing them justice.

But why talk about them? Let's look at the photos...



Created with flickr slideshow.
I am pretty sure you have to be reading this on my blog page to be able to see the slideshow. You can also scroll through the photos on Flickr.