Day 27, 7th May 2026 Canakkale to Istanbul

 And we’re off, leaving Canakkale behind on our last Turkish bus trip.

Bit delayed leaving as the bus was late arriving.

They shouldn’t have stopped for that last cigarette break.🫣


As i write a bus hostess is already delivering coffee, it should be a good day as we head back to Istanbul.


We spot a great looking bridge in the distance and to our delight we will end up crossing it.

It’s the Canakkale bridge which was built in 2022 at a cost of 2.5 billion euros.

I love a bridge and this one did not disappoint and it worked.


Absolutely non eventful trip, couple of stops and one more coffee from our hostess, who is a doppelgänger for Gomez from Adams Family.

Arrived into a crazy Istanbul about 3.30pm and into one of the strangest otogaris we’ve been to.


We went underground, which was dark and dusty and there were all sorts of shops. Tailors, shoe and cloths shops and also the mechanics and washers for the buses. Weird.


Dropped off up top thankfully and organised a Taksi which took us to Cheers Vintage Hostel.

I had this place booked for a week when we were doing the Stans trip.

Once that got cancelled our dates didnt match up, but i was lucky to be able to book for our last 2 nights in Istanbul.

When you see the photo of our view, i think you will understand why i had to stay here.


Dumped our gear and headed upstairs to the rooftop bar for a cold beverage.





Istanbul…. We’re back and this trip sadly is nearly over but not quite yet, we still have tomorrow.















We asked the man at the hostel “where to eat?” He suggested two, Kosk Kebap, which was closing as we approached, and a bit further away: Balkan kitchen. Wow what a find, good local food, good price in an austere environment!






That view from our window tho……


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The adventurous lead up 10th April 2026

Image
This was to be called "not the Stans IYKYK" but we reconsidered this as a bit obscure.  It has certainly been quite the adventure, and we haven't left yet!  First, We found out the United Kingdom of great Britain and Ireland has changed the rules. If you are a citizen you MUST enter using a UK passport. In broad terms if your father was born in UK (like Stuart) you must use a UK passport or Relinquish your citizenship or obtain an enduring certificate of entry  these last two can take many months to process. so multiple original documents, including Australian passport was sent off to UK to obtain said passport...and it has arrived 10 days before departure. the Australian passport to arrive a couple of days later. talk about stressful! Secondly this trip, apart from the essential education component (conference in Marrakesh), was to visit the "Stans";  Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan. we thought we might give Pakistan  and...
Read more

Official Day 1 10 th April 2026 Travelling into the 11th April

Image
 Now it might seem a little strange that get to the UK this time, we are flying to across the guts of Australia to Perth.  It was another brilliant idea we had,  to test drive the 17 hour Perth to London flight. Our boys have both done and remarked that it wasn’t too bad, so we thought we would give it a go. As our luck would have it, the event in the Middle East changed all that and QF 9 doesn’t exist for the time being. It’s a Perth to Singapore ( for a 2 hour refueling stop) and then onto London. I think a total of about 29 hours. We have a flight to catch after our London arrival to get to Marrakesh, our seat of learning and education. That was all fine before we were heading to Singapore. We originally were arriving at Heathrow at 5am which gave us plenty of time to get to Gatwick for our 2pm flight to Marrakesh. Now we will be arriving at 10am with a very quick dash to the other side of London to get that flight. It seems there has been a definite tone set for this...
Read more

Day 3 ourika valley monday 13 april 2026

Image
  Today we are going on an adventure out the Ourika Valley, one of many in the Atlas mountains. Fairly low in the mountain but high enough to host a pretty waterfall. We meet our bus at 9am about a 5 minute walk away and get comfy for a trip of about an hour out of Marrakesh. The traffic out of Marrakesh is crazy but we finally emerge. Its nice being on this little bus ( with a bunch of very noisy French people) The views ahead are of the beautiful snow capped mountain range with Morocco just coming out of winter. Very pretty but hard to capture. First stop was the very busy car park beside the river with these little mini tourist buses going everywhere. I guess we wont be the only ones here today… Our mission before we have lunch by the river is to complete a 1 and half hour hike up to Sti Fadma or the top of the waterfall that we can get to by foot. Not a patch on our Purlingbrook but pretty all the same. The hike was a little unexpected, being very steep and narrow in places. Es...
Read more