Day 1 : Arrival and First impressions...

The Airport...same problems here - where's the front?? (ckn pana pic)

The Istanbul International Airport was, in my opinion, just like any other European airport, so it was easy for us to find our way around. Getting past immigration was easy, esp. since Malaysians do not need a visa to visit Turkey. I even managed to ask the officers if Turkey already celebrated 'Baygam Ramazan'!

We changed some money at the airport - went to the place with the highest rate. But I forgot a cardinal rule; some money changers charge a commission... oops... Too late for that, but we had some Turkish Lira to last our trip into town.

4Es posing at the arrival exit (Mohamed pana pic)

As promised our Hotel sent a driver, Mohamed, to meet us. Pity he didn't speak English too much. We got on the van and sped off towards our hotel in the Sultanahmet area. The journey took about 20 mins, but it was a holiday so traffic was light. We were treated with a nice ocean view all the way up to the old city walls, when we dived into the old roads behind the Blue Mosque and up to Divan Yolu road, where our hotel was.

The Star Holiday Hotel - the doorway is between those 2 restaurants in the background (Ezal pana pic)

Let's get this out of the way - the rooms were small. Smaller than my master bedroom. Smaller than my stomach. AND it was a crooked L-shape to boot. It was a family room with 3 beds (yay!), but the furniture didn't fit in the akwardly shaped room (boo!)...but then again this wouldn't be that kind of holiday where we would spend most of the day in the hotel, would it?

This room was crooked! but it was comfy and clean for the most part (Ckn pana pic)

We'd planned to rest once arriving at the hotel, which we did - but not for too long coz we were really excited in getting on with the program. The hotel location was exactly as our friend, Razman Hashim, suggested - it's minutes away from all the tourist sites in Sultanahmet, and it has a killer view of the Blue mosque (...from the breakfast terrace, that is).

That's our room (1st floor, the 2 bottom right windows). Yes, our room faced the back alley (Ezal canon pic)

We did get about 37 winks, and after getting the kids ready, we all ventured out to start our holiday proper! But first things first - LUNCH! We decided to just buy a packed lunch and find a place to picnic, especially considering it was already past 1pm and the day was nice and warm.

Our first stop for the day would be the Topkapi palace - not by choice really; we were supposed to have cleared the St Sophia Museum and Basilica Cistern, but the _long_ queues scuttled those plans. To add insult to injury, we experienced the one thing that would always test us with the kids...baby strollers on uneven brick roads!!

View of the Blue Mosque from one of the Cad (Alleys) next to the hotel. Notice the brick roads? (Ezal canon pic)

Resources:

Star Holiday Hotel. 3 Star(!) hotel, our main base of operations

• 60 Euros a night for a family room (considered cheap I think for the period and location). Comes with so-so breakfast (learnt a new trick - take natural or plain yogurt, and flavour it with ...honey! Nice)
• Pros : Location was perfect! Restaurants were plentiful (but high prices - it is a tourist area!), but there was a small tuck shop nearby selling cheap water etc. Kitchen facilities (well, it was the hotel bar kitchen, and I used the facilities). Views to die for (at breakfast!). The staff were warm and helpful (Yassin and Altin Ditko)...shhh, a McDonald's was just an 8 minute walk away...
  
• Cons : Little crooked room! No lifts, so we had to take a lot of stairs. Oh yes, our view was of the offices BEHIND the hotel...