Day 24 - Getting to Istanbul

Espresso Freddo: 0

I don't think I'll have the chance to have any more espresso freddos now we are in Turkey.  I should have had one last one at breakfast this morning.  However, it was cool so I just had a Greek coffee instead.

We flew too Istanbul this morning.  We'd had the opportunity to bid for an upgrade to business class and we took it.  We bid half the amount that was the difference between our economy fares and a business class one.  We got the upgrade!  I'm so pleased.  

Originally we thought that business class wasn't worth it on short intra-European flights but the seats are so close together the extra space was well worth the money.  We also got served lunch, which was a rather amusing experience.  The flight was short - only about 1.5 hours.  We were at cruising altitude for all of about 30 minutes so they had to serve us lunch, let us eat it and then clear it all away in that time.  I don't think I've ever eaten so quickly in my life.

Istanbul airport is enormous.  We'd arranged for a car service to pick us up and take us to our hotel.  They sent us a short video showing you how to get through the airport to the pick up point.  Orginaly I thought it was overkill but we needed it.  Then the drive took over an hour.

Our hotel is right by the river, in the heart of the oldest, most touristy part of the city.  It is a maze of narrow, one-way streets, assuming you can drive down them at all.  It took the best part of 20 minutes to go the last 1km.

We accidentally booked a rather more upmarket hotel than we realised.  We were greeted by a porter who brought in our bags from the car.  Then a concierge took over and gave us a glass of homemade lemonade and a piece of Turkish delight to welcome us to the hotel.  Once the tedious, vulgar business of paying for our stay was taken care of, we were escorted to our rooms.  The porter brought our bags up later.

We are on different floors as we have the special rooms with a view.   There is only one such room per floor.  My room is so special I have a bathtub with a view.

The hotel has just been recently renovated and they don't have a breakfast room (yet?).  However, they do have a cafe where we can have free coffee or tea at any hour of the day or night.  The concierge reminds us of this every time we see him.  So far we haven't taken advantage of it, which I think greatly distresses him.  Tomorrow.

After checking in (and getting rid of the concierge) we went out for an amble around.  We also needed to buy the Istanbul equivalent of a Myki card.  While we were looking blankly at the ticket machine and man came up behind us.  It was about 5pm so he was clearly a commuter on his way home.  We told him to go first but instead he took the time to show us how to buy the card, which was very kind of him.  So far, everyone we've met has been anxious to help.

After this we wandered around a bit.  The traffic here is nightmarish.  To cross a road, we just wait until there are other people crossing in our desired direction and just march out into the traffic with them.   It seems to work.

For dinner we went to a pedestrian street that is wall to wall restaurants for tourists.  We went to one the concierge recommended and had kebabs - chicken for me, lamb for Mary - which were Decent.  For dessert we had rice pudding which was Good.  By Turkish standards it was very expensive, but I spend that much on brunch at home, so it seemed reasonable to us.

Tomorrow we go on a food tour.  We are looking forward to learning about what is good to eat here.  There are so many shops selling so many delicious looking pastries.