D46 - Greece to Turkey

We had a few hours tucked up our sleeves this morning, so after a decent sleep-in we slowly wandered around the local area (which seems a bit rough but I’m sure is absolutely safe) for coffee/pastries/pharmaceutical items. It seems very few businesses that we go to are open, so we’re trying the “wing it” approach.
All was well soon enough - coffee and pastries were devoured and we’ve stocked up on our anti-travel sickness medication for the impending amount of Turkish buses we’ll be riding!

We packed up and locked the apartment, and headed back towards Athens airport. The line in security took so long that we lost any spare time we had given ourselves to eat lunch, so fast and friendly takeaway was the go. As it happens we sat on the tarmac for almost an hour! We’re not Algean Airlines biggest fans at this point...

Once we touched down at Istanbul’s recently opened airport, which is pretty swanky pants, we managed to trade our residual francs and euros for lira. We then had the pleasure of finding a taxi - we got lucky with our incredibly grumpy old Turkish taxi driver who had initially agreed on 140 lira, tried to up the price to 160 lira once we pulled away and pulled the “I don’t speak English” stint. Tired and not wanting to cause an argument, we would only settle for 150 lira. It was a great drive, but by the time we got into the Golden Horn District our driver was fed up and didn’t even drive us to the hotel. As it turns out we only had to walk 5 minutes, and very little local traffic was present so we can forgive him this time.

We arrived at the hotel and rushed to unpack in our tiny abode which looks way more glamorous on its website, of course! We went downstairs to the lobby and met the rest of our tour group, plus our guide Mete. There is 11 of us in total, which makes a nice change from the 16 he had last week, however one person hasn’t arrived yet.
Over the next hour or so Mete went through the itinerary with us, which included some exciting changes and optional activities.
We all went out for dinner together to a local restaurant, and it was great to relax and get to know people. There’s 3 married couples, 2 single blokes and 2 girls who have been travel buddies for 18 years! The food was pretty good and there was lots of fanfare by the waiters with one balancing wine several glasses on his head while dancing down the cobbled street!

Tomorrow we do a walking tour, so sleep can’t come quick enough.Read more