Above: View from our Uskudar cafe while killing time.
It was a repeat of yesterday morning in that Kim went sightseeing without me. This time it was Istanbul’s Roman Basilica Cistern, which I had only been to last year. With no queues soon after its opening time of 0900, he was back in no time.
We checked out from our hotel around 1130 to kill time somewhere, with the intention of going to the airport mid-afternoon for the evening flight to Constanta in Romania.
We took the Marmaray underwater metro to Uskudar on the Asian side. We thought we’d have a drink at an expensive-looking rooftop café which offered a view of the Bosphorus and the European side.
While having our drinks, we realised that prices were actually same as a simple place back in the tourist area. So, we ordered a salad each. The pleasant surprise at the end was the lack of a service charge on top of the menu price.
As we explored the area afterwards, a kebab sandwich in the area was about half the price of the tourist area.
We finished our Asian excursion with a trip to the supermarket to get some profiteroles smothered in chocolate sauce, something I remember from last year. With that in our hand, we returned by the Marmaray underwater train for the 3 min 08 sec journey back to Europe.
Back around 1400, we ordered tea to accompany the profiteroles. Unfortunately the chocolate sauce was sour! It’s definitely not what I remembered. Perhaps someone made a mistake with the ingredients but it didn’t curdle despite!
We ordered a taxi for 1500 but it turned up about 1430. The hotel had offered us a rate of TRY550 or EUR19. That’s an amazing rate considering previous trips, I had been offered EUR50 or EUR35 for pick-ups, which is probably more expensive due to the waiting involved.
Public transport of tram then bus would have cost us half (for both of us combined) but this was a nice little treat.
We arrived at Istanbul airport around 1530, which was 5h prior to our departure to Constanta. With no queues at the many Turkish Airlines counters, quick processing for both immigration and security, we were airside in 30 mins (including plenty of dilly-dallying).
I like the new-generation x-ray machines here where laptops and liquid items don’t have to be taken out from one’s bag. Liquids over 100ml are still not permitted.
After a brief walk airside, we went to the lounge where we killed about 3h. It’s a huge busy place with a good array of food and live classical music.
Our Turkish Airlines A319 departed on time at 2040 for the 1h05 flight to Constanta on Romania’s Black Sea riviera. It was nice to be on a plane with good quality very wide seats with good recline, even though it’s such a short flight. The crew handed out snack boxes of sandwich, cakes, juice and water.
We were surprised to get a snack box (with drawstrings to make it feel like a basket) on such a short flight.
At Constanta airport, the ATM outside the terminal wasn’t working. We hopped in a taxi, having agreed to pay for the fare in EUR. But when I checked, I didn’t have enough EUR but had more USD. I wasn’t sure if the driver would be happy with that but fortunately, we found an ATM only metres from the Megalos Hotel where we would be staying.
The ride was cost more than what I had read online but we were happy to be at our home for the next three nights around 2245.