Istanbul not Constantinople

This is part two of a five part round the world trip.

• Cruising to the Old World
• Istanbul not Constantinople
• Better in Bangkok
• Killing Time in Kuantan
• Sunny in Sydney

As this segment of the trip began, the US and Israel had just declared war on Iran a few days before. 

My original plan had been to fly onward from Istanbul after 3-4 nights followed by:

• 7 nights in the Hyatt Regency in Baku in Azerbaijan.
  24,500 points and one suite night upgrade certificate. 
   
• 6 nights in the Hyatt Centric in St. Julian's, Malta.
  2x $300 Amex Hotel Credits plus $100.
   
• 2-3 nights in the Park Hyatt Doha, Qatar
  Category 1-4 certificates
   
• 2-3 nights in a Hyatt Mr. and Mrs. Smith in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  $65/night
   
• 4 nights in Melbourne TBD
  Positioning to Australia in the hopes of a last minute offer for a transpacific cruise leaving early April.

At the time, Hyatt was running a promotion where you essentially got back 1,000 points for every night you stayed. Park Hyatt, Hyatt Centric and Mr. and Mrs Smith would all have been new Hyatt brands for me as well, pushing me up to my 15th unique brand, a point at which Hyatt gives you a free night through their "brand explorer" program.

As someone that chases Hyatt Globalist status (60 nights/year), this segment of the trip was going to earn me 20 elite night credits while costing so little it seemed like magic. The vast majority of the cash stays were on Amex credits and on the trip I would be earning more points than I spent as well as earning back one of the certificates. It was almost obscene how good it was.

But as I found myself flying into Istanbul, I had no idea what the future would hold.

My flight from Barcelona to Istanbul left the same day I arrived in Barcelona from the cruise. Barcelona was booked solid a month out for a festival with zero hotel availability. 

Even though the war threw all my plans into flux, it made sense to continue on to Istanbul for several reasons.

• There was nowhere to stay in Barcelona.
• Istanbul is an extremely well connected city both to the east and west. It would give me options.
• Turkish is one of the only airlines in Europe that has a real business class.

No one knew if the war would last 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years and my itinerary didn't enter the war zone for another two weeks. It made sense to hold the course.

I landed in Istanbul after dark and then took the train into town. The airport is very far from the city, but there is a train (M11) that is fairly easy to take.

You have to walk a mile or so to get to the station all through the airport area which is very nice. Once there, you need to buy a ticket as the train didn't take tap to pay at the time. Most other transit in Istanbul does now so this may have changed since my visit.

The train ride is about an hour and it deposits you in Gayrettepe northeast of the city. From there it was another kilometer underground to get to another metro to take you over to Taksim, which is kind of the heart of the modern city. There were lots of signs guiding you in the right direction and the metro felt very safe even though it was around 9-10pm.

I believe the metro trains within Istanbul other than the M11 usually accept tap to pay and once I found the next train it was just 2-3 more stops to Taksim.

My first night in Taksim Square, I stayed at the Grand Hyatt using a category 1-4 certificate. The hotel was very nice, though sadly the lounge was closed for Ramadan, but I knew that going in.

They upgraded me to a suite which was fantastic. I think my only complaint might have been that it didn't have convenient unusued power outlets anywhere near the bed.

The breakfast was among the best I've ever had in any hotel, which is particularly impressive when you recall this was during Ramadan. High quality breakfasts proved to be something of a theme in Istanbul, but of all the hotels I stayed at here, the Grand Hyatt's breakfast was definitely the best.

The next day, I transferred to the InterContinental Istanbul, literally across the street from the Grand Hyatt.
 

The first two nights of this room were booked using the Bilt Home Away from Home program for $394 which turned into $94 after $300 in Bilt credits. The last night was booked with a free night certificate.

Strangely, I don't seem to have taken any pictures of the room. My memory is that it was a nice room, but not a full suite, and perhaps a bit dated. The breakfast was almost as good at the Grand Hyatt.

While staying in Taksim, a big portion of my time was spent searching for flights and hotels and trying to figure out what I was going to do regarding my itinerary and the war, but I did get a little time to explore the neighborhood.

During Ramadan, Taksim Square was full of lights and the mosque had rotating messages strung between the spires in lights. The message that was up while I was there translated "My home is my heaven, my family is my wealth."

İstiklal Avenue is the main thoroughfare leading from Taksim Square. I walked it around midnight on the weekend and it was hopping. Big crowds, lots of fashion and dining. It seemed like a place frequented more by locals than tourists but also tourist friendly. 

Shortly after hopping to the Intercontinental, it was clear the war was expanding. Much of the airspace in the middle east was shut down. 

My schedule had me leaving for Baku, Azerbaijan within a couple days. While they had stayed largely out of the conflict, Azerbaijan does share a border with Iran and Iran did strike an airport in the southern portion of the country. Not long after, I saw an Azerbaijan was officially accepting refugees, particularly foreigners leaving Iran.

I decided it would be in poor taste, and risky, for me to continue on to Baku. It was better to leave that 3,500 point/night room for someone that might really need it.

At this point, I still didn't know what I was going to do long term, but I knew I needed more time to figure it out. I also wanted to see other parts of Istanbul and, after spending so much time looking at contingencies, I felt like I'd barely seen any of the city.

So I decided to move to a cheaper hotel in Old Town, DoubleTree by Hilton Istanbul Sirkeci.

I booked the DoubleTree for 136k Hilton points using the 5th night free benefit. It was a solid room, not as nice as the Grand Hyatt or Intercontinental, but it actually had significantly better power outlets than either. The location was close to perfect for anyone staying in Old Town.

Apparently, I didn't get any pictures of the room, but I got lots of pictures of breakfast. It wasn't as good as the Grand Hyatt or Intercontinental but it was still really, really good and far easier to get for free. I think anyone with Hilton Gold or better gets free breakfast.

The DoubleTree has a rooftop terrace with great views of the city. Gülhane Park is just a block or two away. You can't see any in these photos, but there were herons nesting in the trees and they could often be seen swooping over head.

I ate at the rooftop restaurant one night and the staff were very friendly and the food and ambiance were beautiful.

Early in my stay at the DoubleTree, I finalized the next step of my journey. The war had taken almost all the usual award inventory and flight paths out of the picture. Almost everything normally runs through the middle east. With that airspace closed, and Russia closed, I think some people in Europe were even flying west through the Americas to get to eastern Asia.

Given those constraints, I'd been switching between 2-3 options

If I wanted to head back to the US, there was a very cheap transatlantic cruise returning from Barcelona in 3 weeks. However, this involved staying in fairly expensive European markets for a few weeks.

If I want to head east and continue going around the world, I would either need to go south below middle east or north above it. Further complicating things, Pakistan and Afghanistan were in an on again off again shooting war.

I only ever saw one option to go south, to Nairobi Kenya. This would have been fairly expensive and I would have needed to take a flight east from there after a few days because there simply weren't many flights out. It also required evaluating Kenya on the fly with only a couple days notice... visas... vaccinations... things to do. It was all unknown and the availability to Nairobi only lasted a day or two.

The other option was Thai Airways to Bangkok. This flight was only 60k points and had lots of availability, but it skirted the northern border of Iran (never entering) and then flew over Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is what I ended up doing. Once it was booked, I could finally relax and enjoy the next few days in Istanbul.

Gülhane is a large, popular park in the heart of Istanbul's old town. It's well connected to the old palace and museums, and near Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. The DoubleTree was two blocks away.

While I was there, large numbers of herons were nesting in the tall trees. There were almost always one or two swooping overhead, and I could see some blurry baby heron chicks up in the nests with my phone zoomed in. As a corollary, there was a lot of bird poop on the ground in the area under the birds so watch out below. The herons seem to nest here every March and it's also a good time to see other migratory birds.

In addition to the herons, I saw large flocks of European white storks migrating over Istanbul.

When you buy a ticket for Hagia Sophia, you actually get a ticket for both the museum and the cathedral itself. I recommend visiting the museum first a few blocks away near the Blue Mosque. 

The museum has timed entry and you enter in groups with language specific headphones. Then you are routed through a series of 15 or so rooms with projections on all the walls showing an animated history of the cathedral going back through the centuries. It's one of the best museum experiences I've ever seen and it will provide lots more context before visiting the main cathedral.

Once you enter the cathedral, you're only allowed in on the second floor, and you are allowed to wear shoes.

Unlike Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque is free to visit. However, you do need to take off your shoes and you should wear sox. If you are wearing sandals and suddenly decide you need sox, many of the tourist shops in the area sell "I Love Istanbul" sox for a couple dollars.

This little bazaar is just a block or so away from the Blue Mosque. It was a pleasant experience, far less crowded than the famous Egyptian Spice Bazaar near Galata bridge.

I thought it would be pleasant to walk along the waterfront, from east of Hagia Sophia around Topkapi Palace to Galata bridge. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake, but in kind of interesting ways tied to the evolution of the city.

Old town is full of narrow winding roads and hills. It's great for pedestrians and truly terrible for cars. You are far better off walking or taking mass transit. In addition, the Topkapi palace, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque and Gülhane Park create huge no-car zones in old town. 

That said, there is one large high speed road that runs along the waterfront, Kennedy Caddesi. This is probably one of the busiest roads in the city in terms of throughput. It also runs just outside the old Byzantine Sea Walls which protected the city from naval attacks.

The result of this is that once you start walking on the waterfront, you're stuck walking alongside this busy road, and the city walls don't have any gates or gaps that are open to the public. Once you're outside the walls you are outside the walls. There is a nice bike / walking path along the coast, but you're still walking next to this extremely busy road where cars zip by very quickly since there are no side streets.

The Archaeological Museum is full of treasures from all over the ancient world. The first floor is mostly statues. The second floor has gold treasures, coins and sarcophagi. In one of the cooler exhibits, they have collections of currency from four major empires. So for example, you can go to the Roman coin section and find all the Nero and Commodus coins, or whichever Roman emperor you want over a thousand years.

This served as the administrative heart of the Ottoman Empire starting with the 1460s. Now it's a very impressive museum.

Hagia Irene, on the grounds of Topkapi Palace dates back to the 4th century and is actually older than nearby Hagia Sophia. It's in somewhat poor shape, also a separate ticket unless you buy the all exhibits pass.

The Imperial Harem is a wing of Topkapi Palace, though often a separate ticket. While I think a lot of westerners will view the harem a certain way, some of the women in the harem were actually quite famous and wielded enormous power in the empire.

This has been part two of a five part round the world trip.

• Cruising to the Old World
• Istanbul not Constantinople
• Better in Bangkok
• Killing Time in Kuantan
• Sunny in Sydney

Continue the journey in Bangkok.