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Pick your favourite ATM, there’s no shortage of choice….

On the left is the Galata Bridge, which is the fifth structure built at this location, completed in December 1994 to replace a historic pontoon bridge that was damaged by fire. Spanning 490 metres across the Golden Horn, the bridge is a bascule design, featuring a central section that can be raised to allow large vessels access to the inner waters. The bridge is unique for its two-tier design, with the upper level dedicated to transit and the lower level housing a commercial corridor of licensed restaurants and cafes.

Standing on the lower deck of the bridge looking at the Golden Horn (an inlet of the Bosporus River), these aren’t flying fish, they’re the fishing lines from the fisherman standing on the top deck of the bridge.

We have a finely tuned policy on where to eat which requires advance research, so we weren’t tempted by the waiting staff trying to drag us into their restaurant on the lower deck.

Standing watching the river traffic going by.

The bridge links the Eminönü in the Fatih district and Karaköy in the Beyoğlu district. The photo shows the Fatih district, which is where we were staying and spend the day meandering around.

I’d note that there were a lot of people fishing and they were all catching a fair number of fish.

I’m very conscious that this ‘riveting’ blog is getting behind, I’m having some challenges with the Internet. Jonathan’s extremist view that I’m addicted to being online is ridiculous, so I’ve ignored that. Anyway, this is from Istanbul, so my first proper meal in Turkey. Posts might be a little shorter than usual in my attempt to catch up.

The bread, spicy ezme sauce and Tzatziki type dip was provided free of charge and they also replaced it when we ate all of it, which was really rather lovely.

I decided to go for a salad side as a healthy diet is obviously important to me. There was more salad than I expected and it was certainly a colourful and well presented arrangement.

The main course was chicken kebab which was really rather lovely, a depth of flavour to the chicken which was tender and moist. There was bread to mop up the juices and some texture from the onion.

There was a free dessert provided by the restaurant, this all felt a little bit like the Lowestoft Tandoori. It was similar to the Indian dessert of gulab jamun as it was sweet and syrupy, but the nuts added extra texture.

I paid around £6.50 for the Pepsi, salad and chicken kebab, with the rest of the elements all free of charge. It was also handy that they accepted card payments as I wasn’t sure what the set-up was in that regard. The service was attentive, polite and welcoming and the environment was clean and comfortable. This was certainly a really rather positive first impression of Turkish food in a casual and informal restaurant.

I realised that I was taking too many photos of stray cats in Istanbul, so I’ll pop some of the photos in this post and then I won’t need to mention it again. It’s not known how many stray cats there are in the city, but it’s thought to be around 125,000 to 175,000. That’s a lot of cats and the city has a policy to just let them be.

Sitting on a validator is likely quite warm and passengers can always work around it….

Very sweet.

A very focused cat.

A sleepy cat, I liked him…..

This one wanted attention but then saw a bird. Not that I went too near the cats, I’m unsure what little illnesses they might carry.

If you want to support local stray cats, they have cat feeding machines…

Perhaps this is why most of the cats looked relatively healthy. although it seems that many cats are adopted by locals who look out for them.

Istanbul Airport is a beautifully laid out building with clear signage and grand opening spaces. I’ve already mentioned that the wi-fi didn’t work, but I won’t continue to dwell on that.

The public transport signage, I was fortunate to have Jonathan to guide me through the options.

This is the covered outside area, it reminded me of Heathrow T5. It’s about a ten minute walk to get from the arrivals area of the airport to the metro lines.

I was hoping that the transportation system would be contactless, but it was more like London’s outgoing Oyster system. However, there were enough machines and the process was relatively painless and inexpensive.

We needed to take two metro trains to get to the city centre, this is the platform at the airport where we ready for our first journey.

We were heading to Gayrettepe Yonu station when we were transferring to a second line.

A photo of the metro train as we departed it, it had been much busier than that during the journey.

Changing trains at Gayrettepe Yonu, our first journey had taken around 45 minutes as the new airport is located a fair way out.

There was a bit of a walk, but we meandered up and down lots of stairs and corridors to another line which dates to the early 1990s. There’s a charge every time you change lines, but it’s all clear and works well.

There is wi-fi on some of the network for locals, but it doesn’t work on UK phones. I hardly complained about this to Jonathan.

The second train heading towards the Vezneciler-Istanbul University metro stop which is where we were getting off. This was a shorter journey of around twenty minutes.

And at around midnight, we arrived into the heart of Istanbul with just a twenty minute walk to the hotel. It was a little later than we would have liked, but we knew that the hotel had a 24-hour reception and it was good to be properly in Turkey for my first time (or Jonathan’s about 20th visit).