The world is open again and I’m officially back outside! In April we went on a Euro trip which included a deliberate, long lay over in Istanbul, Turkey. We found good flights on Turkish Airlines and we were going to go past Istanbul anyway, it made sense to see the city. it was such a whirlwind 12 hours after a 9 hour flight from Johannesburg.

I didn’t know anything at all about Istanbul + Turkey before going, luckily my sister had been a few times so I was more than happy to follow her lead.

We arrived in Istanbul at around 06:00 and our flight to Paris was boarding at 19:20 that evening so we had just over 12 hours. We booked at the Miss Istanbul Hotel so we could catch some few hours of sleep and refresh before heading out into the City.

We had a jam packed day but Istanbul traffic said no! Getting anywhere just took too much time so we ended up only going to Ortaköy to explore, go on a cruise on the Bosphorus River and have lunch.

The taxi driver who took us to Ortaköy tried to scam us by saying we hadn’t given him enough money to pay for our trip and wanted us to pay more! Luckily we managed to get our way out of it, but it left a super sour taste in my mouth.

The 12 hours we spent in Istanbul didn’t give me the inclination to go back to the City for a longer time unfortunately. Suffice to say it won’t be going on my bucket list.