great little pharmacy, which has everything that the sick-ish traveller might require. i got great…read morehelp here two years ago about an annoying flu that pestered me straight after my arrival. the lovely, elderly pharmacist gave me great advice on top of the medicine which he sold me. i was right as right very soon afterwards. this time a silly & ugly cold sore appeared on my upper lip, argh! after i cracked him up about choosing the wrong turkish word (uçak / airplane instead of uçuk / cold sore), he once more advised me very friendly about creams / plasters etc. besides i got a little treat of his tiny german language skills. quite funny, too :D but thankfully his english is alright so i hope i can smile again properly soon.

Gayle and I recently returned from a Viking River Cruise that started in Vienna Austria and ended…read morein Bucharest Romania. We then extended our vacation for a couple days to sightsee in Istanbul. Starting at around Day 3 of our trip, we came down with a common cold, with symptoms including running nose and a wet cough. There was no fever or fatigue, and we otherwise felt fine. But we did end up going to a pharmacy at every stop to purchase the local version of cough drops and Mucinex. During the cruise, that usually meant a line of fellow travelers who were experiencing similar symptoms. This Istanbul pharmacy was a couple minutes walk from our hotel near the Hagia Sophia Mosque and served us well, both in terms of options and help at the counter. A couple packages of Kleenex helped as well.