We stay in Argos Hotel, in the middle of Old Town. The hotel is well located and looks nice enough. The staff are friendly and helpful. The best thing, our room is literally five steps away from the pool. Perfect! First thing in the morning I’m going to jump in and swim a round or two. For now it’s already closed and Eliot got told off for jumping in after hours, not that the sign with the rules said anything about when the pool was open.
The flight was as unimpressive as expected. First they tried to complain about my carry on baggage being too heavy. After a short discussion they let me go. They had better, all our luggage combined is less than the limit for a single passenger and we are two! Also, I’m not going to put my camera and my Laptop into the checked in luggage.
The included “meal” was a dry bread roll with two slices of cheese and 200ml of water, handed over by a stewardess when we entered the plane. The only good thing – the flight was on time.
Border control in Turkey wasn’t sure if Eliot might need to pay for a visa, but that got sorted pretty easy. No visa required. Poor Australians get charged $25, but apparently they like Kiwis more.
The welcome guy at the airport was friendly and showed us the way to our transfer bus. Luckily we were the only ones heading into Old Town and got the bus all to ourselves, no annoying stops at different hotels to drop off other tourists. The driver was on the phone all the time, of course without headphones. Maybe they have less rules about calling while driving in Turkey. It seemed like a casual personal call, but halfway throuhg we figured out he was also getting directions on where to go. How an airport driver doesn’t know the way to the tourist centre I’m not sure. He actually managed to do a U-Turn twice on the same street, and in my opinion only got lucky to not kill anyone while doing it. Ahh, Turkey.