Istanbul

Day 1 - Fri 2 Jul 2004

Up at 5am to get to the railway station! My taxi was an old Jaguar - very plush. Got to Liverpool street with no issues, and caught the shuttle bus out to London City airport (it was so early there was no-one else on it).

I'd ordered some currency from Travel-ex, and it should have been a case of just turning up and collecting it, but it had been mis-filed, so it took a long longer that I was expecting!

Checked in at Business Class with no problems, and got checked all the way to Istanbul, I didn't get an upgrade, but was told to ask at the gate when I got to Frankfurt.

London City airport is tiny - boarding the plane was a piece of cake, and the walk to the gate was very short! Sat next to two other solo travellers, A woman doing a Phd in Philosophy at London City, and off for a girls weekend in Madrid, and a futures trader off to see his pal in Greece. All of us had done a lot of travel, so there were a number of travellers tales told!

The flight was ok, but with the usual bumps on the way into Frankfurt (I expect nothing less now!) The plane stopped miles from the terminal building, so I got the usual bus trip around Frankfurt airport to get to the terminal. But, by pure fluke got dropped off by the gate for the onward flight to Istanbul

Had to go all the way out of the airport to get my railway ticket for my trip to the Netherlands on Monday. At least on the way back in I managed to avoid the huge check-in queues. Glad I got checked all the way through!

Got back to the gate and asked for an upgrade, and got it! Yipeee!

Hmm! Business class isn't that exciting on short haul - I think I got a bit of extra leg room, and that's about it. Anyway, off the plane first, and joined the queue at passport control - but I needed to buy a visa, so off to join the visa queue (20,000,000 Lira!) and then queue up again for passport control.

No baggage to claim, so straight into a taxi; the driver didn't know the exact location of the hotel, but after a high speed dash from the hotel, and a few stops for directions we got there - all for the bargain price of 17,000,000 Lira.

Blue Mosque light show

Checked into the Hotel Poem, the room is small with twin beds, but is clean, tidy, and has Air Con! Slept for an hour or so, and then headed out in the cool of the evening.

Found the Sound and Light show at the Blue Mosque - very good! Back to the hotel, and got some photos from the roof top.