Had breakfast, finished packing our bags, and caught our taxi to the airport. Baku International isn’t a busy airport, so got there only two hours ahead of our flight. The check-in didn’t actually open until after we got there!
Got through security (water allowed) and immigration, and then into the general lounge area. It’s the nicest non-business class airport lounge that I’ve been to so far. Granted, there’s far fewer passengers here, which makes a difference. We were almost disappointed to hear our plane called for boarding :)
It was a comfortable Turkish Airlines flight back to Istanbul. The flight was about 2.5 hours, perfect for watching a movie. (I finally watched the Lego movie; the cast of the Lego movie did the safety videos on Turkish Airlines, so I now get the inside jokes in the safety video).
We got through Istanbul airport in record time, under 40 minutes from landing to getting into a taxi. If we hadn’t had the farthest baggage carousel (yet again), it would have been even faster.
Traffic was excellent too, which meant we had some time to get out and enjoy Istanbul when we arrived. First though, the hotel owner offered us coffee, which we had out on the front patio. He then brought out a birthday cake for Heather! which was very nice of him. He had noticed her birthday when we registered with our passports.
Later we walked around the pedestrian shopping area, towards the Galata Tower. There was a long line to go up to the top (a two hour wait?), so we declined and continued exploring. There seemed to be another cool little street with shops and cafes filling up every nook and cranny down every street we turned!
By the time we got back to the hotel it was already after 7pm. The long summer day threw us off with the time... We cleaned up and headed out for dinner at a much more acceptable time of 8:30pm :)
We ate at Asmalı Cavit, a mezze place recommended by our hotel. We got seated upstairs, at one of the last tables available. At first we had flashbacks to the claustrophobic table in Tyre, Lebanon, but it turned out to be an excellent table.
The restaurant was crowded with mostly locals. The cold mezze was served dim sum style, with a cart wheeled up and the dishes served based on what we pointed to. The food was really tasty and pretty healthy too.
We also had a hot mezze, fried calamari, but we should have gone with the healthier grilled version.
Half of what we ordered was based on what the table of five beside us was eating. They were really friendly, telling us to ‘eat what we eat’ :)
Thought about dessert, but we were full, so got our bill and headed home to sleep.
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