Completely traumatised today! 🤯Kind of expected it, but driving in Istanbul was far worse than I could have imagined.
All went well this morning. We rattled along the last of Bulgaria’s pot holed roads and reached the border quite quickly.
The border was a free for all. You have to leave your vehicle in the queue and go to the office with your documents. Much pushing and shoving ensued. Being a non pushy person, I soon got shelled out the back. Then Guy arrived and had an altercation with an old woman who obviously thought she should be first no matter how long anyone else had waited.
Then, everyone has to pay to drive through some disinfectant. We had no Turkish Lira and there was no exchange office. The man took 4 Euros from us …think that was twice the amount everyone else paid. I don’t think the disinfectant is any use if people climb all over you to get their passports stamped 😂🙄
Next we needed a vignette for the motorway – the office didn’t take cards but we have 7 days grace to buy one from the post office – we think!
The first couple of hours in Turkey were a breeze. Great wide sweeping roads, not much traffic and we heard our first ‘call to prayer’. Then, as we hit Instanbul, we couldn’t believe the size of it with hundreds upon hundreds of skyscrapers – it all looked so modern and lulled us into a false sense of security.
As we turned off the motorway, we chose not to take a turning as it looked too narrow. The next thing, we’re caught in total gridlock around the narrow streets of a very busy area. There were cars, trucks, scooters, coaches all jammed together facing different directions. We moved about a hundred yards in four hours! People with children, men with carts all weaved between the traffic. I don’t know how we came out of it unscathed.
Still couldn’t get to the parking, there was a railway bridge that was too low for us. Starting to get dark so I couldn’t read the signs. No internet, so no Googlemaps. Eventually we stopped and asked a very kind man how on earth we could get to the parking. He told us to drive through the back of what looked like a wholesale market. Still had to go under a bridge – it was 3 metres high – we are 2.9! Needless to say we held our breath.
So, here we are. Squeezed into a tiny car park, but it’s guarded and has electricity. Thanking our lucky stars!