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Published: November 19th 2009
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Onward to Istanbul and the Cruise.
Our overnight bus journey to Istanbul was relatively uneventful with several stops at roadside service centres catering to the Bus trade, The highways in Turkey are modern and there are of toll roads as we approached Ankara and later Istanbul. From Goreme there were 9 Buses leaving within a 1 hour time frame and much to my surprise most were full. This is the very end of the tourist season. Ticket prices varied from 30 TLY to 45 TLY. We chose one that promised hot and cold drinks on the journey, a new coach and non-smoking. It was modern Mercedes Benz coach but with very uncomfortable seats for such a long journey and indeed it was No smoking for the passengers but that didn’t stop the driver from smoking whenever he liked.
It started to rain soon after our journey commenced and continued all through the night and right through Saturday. We arrived at the main bus station around 9am and the station was organised chaos. It is amazing how full size coaches can manoeuvre around it so easily. We were offered a ride (included in our ticket) into Sultanhamet which is the
old quarter of Istanbul where our Hotel was situated. Sean navigated brilliantly to our hotel and we arrived at 10.30am. As our room was not ready they offered us breakfast. Officially breakfast was 7am until 10am but they had not started to clear up the breakfast room. The rest of the day was spent in and around the hotel. We did venture out in the early evening only to return wet and cold from a thorough drenching.
Sunday November 1st.
Sean had figured out the Tram and Train system for Istanbul. All my research indicated that it was necessary to take a tram to the main bus station and then change to a bus for the run out to the Airport. In fact the “Metro” goes right to the airport. The confusion arose because in Istanbul the “Metro” can mean a suburban train or a bus and in other countries a “Metro” sometimes implies a subway system. So what looked complicated on paper was very simple. First we found a “Jeton” sales point. This is where you exchange 1.5TLY for a plastic token (a Jeton) that is used to operate the station gate, although at many places if the
station attendant is looking the other way you could easily step onto the platform from the rail tracks. The tram runs from out past the Cruise Terminal port through the main tourist route to an Interchange about ½ way to the airport. Here you buy another token for 1.5TLY, this time it is smaller and made of metal. If you have metal tokens you can easily exchange them at a Jeton booth for plastic if needed.
The airport is very modern. Sean was really surprised to see two Gloria Jean’s coffee shops at the terminal side by side with Starbucks. He hinted 4 or 5 five times that he might like a coffee but at 10.2TLY or $8 a cup I wasn’t that interested.
Carol’s flight from Melbourne was with Etihad airways via Abu Dhabi and after buying her $20 Visa on arrival she exited into the arrivals hall about 1.20pm. An hour after her flight landed. After lots of hugs we did the reverse trip on the train and tram. The weather was much nicer with a few hours of sunshine. The trip back into Istanbul gave Carol her first views of the Hagia Sofya, the Blue
Mosque and several other notable features. After getting her settled into the cramped hotel room (4 beds in a double room) and my not too subtle gift of two bottles of Gin and some quilted place mats, and several even less subtle suggestions to Sean that Mum and Dad might like some time alone, we went out for a coffee hit and a bit more shopping. Near the coffee shop was a small store that was closing down in 2 days and had some reasonably nice things at good prices. Carol instantly liked a quilted table cover and I was really pleased as the one she chose was identical to one I almost purchased for her in Goreme.
Sunday evening we walked out to Linda and Carliegh’s hotel, about 20 minutes away. Linda and her daughter would be on our cruise. We met Linda last year on the Western Mediterranean cruise and have kept in touch. Dinner was a simple affair at a small street level Kebab shop where Carol was introduced to the local spirits of Riki which has a similar tastes and smell to Ouzo. The meal was a lot of fun and the staff made sure
we had a good time.
Rum Running on the Ship
One of the fun and somewhat cheeky things to do on a cruise is to try to sneak a bit of alcohol on board. Price for a 330ml beer is $4.65US plus 15% gratuity and most cocktails or spirits are $6 to $7US plus 15%. I don’t have any photos of our beer and spirit smuggling efforts as that would leave a trail of evidence. Plus I don’t plan to detail the process or NCL might monitor my Travel Blog and tighten their procedures. Suffice to say that we were moderately successful. We also on occasion drank a few beers in the port before going back on board.
Monday November 2nd
We had time for a coffee and a short shopping stop at our favourite “Closing Down Today” shop before checking out and going to the port. We were not sure which Tram stop was the best even though we could see the ship from near our hotel. The day before one of our fellow cruisers said don’t take the tram because it’s a down hill walk to the port over cobblestones. Nothing could have been further from
Sean spots Krista
amazing good spotting by Sean. Krista was ahead of us at the Sultanhamet Jeton Booth the truth. The Tram lines follow the shoreline but about 100meters inland and it is very flat. Our problem was that as soon as we crossed the bridge at the Galata Tower stop it looked as though our ship was 300 to 500 meters away. It turned out to be about 1.5km but never mind the walk did us a good and we learnt to go two stops further next time. We had expected to leave our luggage with handlers and then check in but we were told to keep it with us. In fact we should have left it but this turned out to be to our advantage because instead of our luggage being inspected for alcohol we had to somehow fit our packs and suitcase through the security XRay machine. This machine is more suited for day packs and grocery bags. So while the guy was busy squashing our bags into the machine he was not really paying a lot of attention to the XRay picture. From a security point of view it was a pointless exercise but it was great for us as we managed to get 2 Bottles of Whisky and 2 Bottles of Gin on
Board. What a great start to our Cruise!
Tuesday November 2nd, Departure Day
We decided to visit the Egyptian or Spice Bazaar but before that I was keen to look at the Yenin Mosque. Xenia, one of the girls on the Middle East trip had shown me photographs of the Yenin Mosque from her recent visit and what aappealed to me apart from the obvious beauty of the building was the lach of tourists or other people in her pictures. The Egyptian Bazaar is immediatly outside the Mosque and after working our way through a few hundred pigeons we did a short tour of the Bazaar which is alos know as the Spice Bazaar.
By continuing a short distance beyond we ended up in the Grand Bazaar. This was our second visit and it was agood chance for Linda to buy some Turkish Tea Glasses - Actually I think I own them but they are permanantly resdiding in Halifax, Novia Scotia. There was just enough time to have a coffee and a quick visit to the Supermarket and then we hopped onto a Tram after purchasing our Jeton token. Sean and the girls headed back to the ship
and as I had an hour left before we were required to board the ship I decided to walk up to and climb to the top of the Gelata Tower for some altitude pictures of the Istanbul Skyline.
Departure time was 2pm and like most days we made an on-time departure.
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San Antonio Howard
non-member comment
I have trip envy !
Thanks for doing your chronicle and posting pictures. You must explain how your Turkish tea glasses ended up in Halifax. Howard