The And Hotel is dark and suitably 3rd World, but I can see the minarettes of the Hagia Sophia from my window.
After 15 hours of flight time and 10 hours of layovers I arrived Ataturk International Airport around 2 hours ago. After paying $20 for a 30-day visa, I excited the terminal in search of the ride I had arranged on the Internet.After scanning the hand-written signs held desulterally aloft by drivers and tour guides several times, I determined my guy was absent. Two other drivers offered me a ride to town for 20 euros, but I had been quoted 10, so I said I’d wait. A few more minutes passed before a third driver approached and asked if I had a contact number he could call for me. I thanked him as he dialed the mobile number of the driver, who answered and said he was running late. Fifteen minutes later I found him at the information counter when I answered a page for Miss Barbara.
The traffic in Istanbul is as fast and tightly packed as Asia, but the drivers appear to obey the rules. On the way to the Sultanahmet district we passed defensive walls from the middle ages, broken and incorporated into low-rise hotels and homes. As my driver turned sharply in to the old (c. 500 AD) part of the city I got my first glimpse of the enormous dome and soaring minarettes of the Hagia Sophia, which will be my first stop tomorrow morning.
Barbara