Istanbul, Turkey

Another day another flight. It seems like we’ve been flying half this trip. Oh well.

Our flight from Cairo back to Istanbul was in the morning, so we woke up early and got to the airport before traffic got heavy. There was no issue leaving Egypt. I half expected some attempts at bribes, but it was all good.

There were no money exchange places in departures (usually we see them everywhere in airports). I had originally planned to use up our remaining Egyptian pounds paying for the hotel, but we had prepaid the room and didn’t have any incidental charges. So we had 20 minutes to spend over $100 in duty free. Ended up getting a couple of things we had actually planned to buy in the markets (but hadn’t found the quality), but it was good here.

The excitement for today’s flight was the arrival at Istanbul’s brand new airport (opened on April 6). It still had that new airport smell :) The airport is huge, but doesn’t feel overwhelming. We still have a couple of flights left in and out of Istanbul, so will have more of a chance to explore, but so far it’s impressive.

There were over 100 immigration desks, a big improvement over the old airport where there was at least an hour wait. The whole immigration / luggage / customs took maybe 45 minutes. I had forgotten the hard copy of my multiple entry visa to Turkey, but the official was okay with looking at it on my phone.

We took a local taxi (which was clearly marked) into the city to our hotel. There were only a couple of unofficial taxi people. It was actually quite refreshing! Even in Toronto there’s more hassle for a fake taxi.

Our friendly taxi driver spoke as much English as we did Turkish, so it was a gesture filled drive. We had the business card from the hotel, which the driver used to call and get directions. Very handy. The new airport is 40km from the centre, and with traffic it took us over an hour. We went through a couple tunnels which popped us out very close to Taksim Square near our hotel.

Checked in. Our big task for the afternoon was getting our laundry done before we left for the Stans tomorrow. Our room had a combo washer / dryer, so we had been putting off washing our bigger items until we got back to Istanbul.

We were pretty hungry and it was only 5pm, then we realized we had only the hotel’s box breakfast and airplane food for lunch, neither of which were particularly filling.

We had a craving for pide or pizza, and our hotel recommended a place nearby. We walked over. The place had lots of character. There were other locals and even a few cats on the patio under the heat lamps (there is a big patio culture here). It was only about 15C, so we ate inside. Ordered a pizza each; we were about to order some appetizers, but the owner suggested that the pizzas might be enough food. Heather ordered a pizza with artichokes. On our way over, we had passed by a street vendor peeling fresh artichokes, so figured they were in season. Seeing the vendor reminded us a bit of Rome. I had a spicy pepperoni pizza - I wasn’t expecting pork on the menu, so went with it.

Had a glass of house red - alcohol doesn’t appear on many menus here (although places that offer it let you know). Our wine was served in a ceramic mug. I switched to a beer later, which was served in a ceramic white beer glass.

The pizzas were large and quite tasty, I actually finished mine! The restaurant had a serious coffee machine, so we had a couple espressos to finish.

Then it was back home for more laundry and off to bed.