Sunday, October 31, 2010

BlogCarnival #13 - Memorable City Experiences

In the wake of the recent rough news to hit my current hometown of Istanbul I thought I'd present a magical moment experienced in this city that preceded the aforementioned act of terrorism by roughly 36 hours.

October 29th is Cumhuriyet Bayram (Republic Day) in Turkey. On this day in 2010 Turkey celebrated the 87th anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

That evening from our balcony on the Asian side we were treated to one of the most amazing fireworks displays I have ever seen. Truly memorable and definitely magical. Spanning an area of 5km the show lasted for 15 minutes. Here is two-and-half minute hastily shot video where I sound a little bit like the 'double rainbow' guy. Listen for the Istanbulites cheering in between booms and enjoy the broadcast.

In commemoration of Turkey lifting its two-year ban on YouTube here is the video link below:




In addition to lonelyplanet.com, this posting is also featured as a part of the Lonely Planet Blogsherpa Travel Carnival. Every two weeks one of Lonely Planet's favorite bloggers becomes the editor of a series of postings all centred on the same theme. This week’s editor is Denise at Travel With DenDen and the declared theme is "Magical/Memorable City Experiences". So visit Travel With DenDen thisNovember 8 to read what the Blogsherpas came up with.

5 comments:

  1. Nice video and thanks to the government of Turkey for opening up to YouTube. Nice post, Joe.
    Jason

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  2. It was fun to watch the video! The excitement of the evening comes through in the video as the camera moves this way or that not wanting to miss a single firework display in the sky!

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  3. You are double rainbow guy. I saw a good firworks show after a Pittsburg Pirates game last year - good times!

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  4. Really like the video. Never been there but with so many places on my already long list I guess adding one more wont hurt.

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  5. One of the greatest fireworks that i had ever seen. It happens a couple of times in a year. You can follow huge and great events from : www.wizardistanbul.com ...

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