Mike and I like to travel abroad at least once a year. It’s nice to learn more about a new place, or to return to the familiar and joy-bringing (hello USA). In February, Mike treated me to a mysterious international location: Italy, spanning Venice, Florence and Milan.
This September, we were meant to attend a wedding in Istanbul, but the bride required emergency surgery for appendicitis, postponing the ceremony. All groomsmen agreed, however, that we would keep our plans for several reasons (in order of importance:
- Moral support for the bride and groom
- The need for a holiday at this time of year
- The novelty of Istanbul as a travel destination for all of us
For this reason, Mike and I were on the Jubilee line to West Hampstead on a Friday at midday, to head to London Luton airport. We met up with our first set of friends, Adam and Aimee, to catch the same train, and caught up with our second set of friends, Pedro and Cecilia, at a restaurant after security for lunch.
The flight to Istanbul from London Luton airport takes 3 hours and 45 minutes. We flew with low-cost operator WIZZ Air, and upgraded to include one piece of checked luggage of up to 26kg. You just never know about souvenirs, eh? We also paid to choose seats to sit together on both flights. That said, we saw air hosts trying as much as possible to seat families together before and after take-off, as not all seats were booked.
Our flight took off at 16:25 BST, and landed at 22:35 EEST, so squarely at dinner time for our sensibilities. We arrived into İstanbul Havalimanı’s arrivals terminal some time later, looking for food options. Aimee and Cecilia opted for a cafe chain, while the rest of us headed to Popeye’s, as Pedro never tried their chicken sandwiches before.
Unfortunately, I think he will never try them again – even if the day shift might have a better offering. Given the time of night and level of travel exhaustion, both Mike and I opted for children’s meals. The chicken burger was sparingly filled with chicken and sauce, and the fries were limp, with sauce choices forgotten. Adam and Pedro fared little better with their tender boxes, devoid of spice or crunch.
Somewhat refuelled by what we ate, we now needed to get to our accommodation for the week. While Uber is generally speaking a reliable option to travel around Istanbul, we were coming up to midnight, and felt more reassured by taking a van from the cab rank at the departures level than trying to find a pickup spot in the dark in an unknown location.
Finally we arrived at our rental for the week, which is in the Sarıyer neighbourhood. The house has a terrace on the fifth floor, from which we could see into the Asian side of Istanbul. We were excited to explore more of this in the coming days.
Costs to date:
- Return to Istanbul, including a 26kg checked bag: £108.98
- Tube to West Hampstead: £7.70
- Train to Luton: £11.55
- Luton airport shuttle train: £4.90 – the shuttle bus no longer exists; this is a rip-off
- Flight seat selection (both ways): £25.00
- Airport lunch: £21.28
- Popeye’s dinner: £7.80 – Western chain fast food is not cheap here
- Cab to rental: £6.66 – car transport is incredibly cheap here
Total: £193.87
The NESSENTIALS 
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