Hello Istanbul
Destination Istanbul.
Pro tip — for the quickest run to the airport ever, pick a morning flight on a public holiday, oh say, New Year’s Day. Deathly quiet, no one on the roads, and somewhat eerie in the dawn Munich fog.
After landing late in the afternoon and checking into an amazing AirBnB apartment, albeit carrying luggage up six flights of stairs, we headed for the main strip towards Taksim Square in search of demonstrations and riots (as popularised by the news). Instead, we found neither, just a whole lot of tourists milling around a central statue in the middle of an ordinarily large gathering space, braving the chilly wind.
The walk through the retail streets leading up to it was an entirely different experience — the shops and crowds dwarf anything of those in Australia. Imagine late-night shopping at Carindale just before Christmas, and multiply it by orders of magnitude. And this was on a public holiday.
Nothing exceptional to note but a few unfortunately named shops and an interesting chess set.
tdha
