I land in Istanbul Atatürk Airport about 90 minutes after leaving Athens. Naturally, I again ran into my former work colleague who is indeed travelling on the same flight. I have my E-visa ready and I get through immigration pretty quickly; not so for them, and anyone else who needed to buy a visa at the airport: the queue for that looked like a bundle of fun.

I figure out how Istanbul transit works, looks pretty straightforward and cheap – 4 Turkish Lira for a one way ticket on any transit type, including transfers. 1 Lira is about 28p so yeah, pretty cheap.

Jump ahead an hour, I’m checking into the hostel. Looks quite nice, I’m in a 6-bed dorm on my own for now. The guy at the desk is very eager with advice so I’m soon loaded up with maps and ideas and directions.

Notes on Istanbul geography:
– the city spans the continents of Europe and Asia, divided by the Bosporus.
– I’m staying on the west (European) side, which is where most of the tourist stuff is.
– the west side is itself divided, by a long inlet called the Golden Horn.
– there are various regions on either side, but the two of tourist interest are Beyoglu (north of Golden Horn) and Eminonu (south). They’re connected by the Galata Bridge.
– broadly speaking the nightlife happens in Beyoglu and the stuff to see is in Eminonu, but there are exceptions.
In fact, have a map:

My hostel is on Beyoglu but almost equidistant to the interesting areas in both areas – about 1.5km either way, easy walking distance.

Right, that’s all the background done.

It’s after 5 now and getting dark; I head out with the intention of wandering for a while and then finding something to eat. My direction of choice is north-east along the waterfront, and it looks very nice at night – the view is across the Bosporus to the Asian side.

I turn inland and head for Taksim Square, the main centre in Beyoglu. It was then I realised that Istanbul is quite hilly. Like, it seems, every other place I’ve been recently. Cities; how do they work???

After clambering up seemingly-endless stairs I get to the square and start walking down the main street of interest – mostly pedestrianised, a couple of km long, very touristy. Lined with restaurants and lots of the little street carts selling roast chestnuts, fried corn cobs and, again, the sesame bread rings. Apparently they’re a thing here as well then. I buy myself some chestnuts, engaging in my first haggling of the trip – he wanted to sell me at least 5 of them, I only wanted a couple as a small snack. Ended up with three (the price was by weight).

Quite a fun street. Plenty of street performers, interesting sweet and pastry shops, miscellaneous interesting-looking buildings. I like it.

Naturally I’ve come prepared with a list of restaurants to check out and after having a look I settle on one of them. It’s what I’d call “canteen-style” with all of the available dishes out front. They all look good to me so I ask the guy for “some of everything” – better than making a decision, right?

I’ll probably forget some things, but here’s what I can remember:
– aubergine burgers (pretty sure they had meat in as well)
– beef burgers
– stuffed cabbage leaves
– fried potato slices
– lightly breaded small fish of some kind
– spiced cabbage
– chickpeas
– diced lamb in a light sauce

It was all really really good, with the aubergine burgers taking the winners medal. Not bad for £7.50!

I’ve also left with a treat for later – not sure what it’s called but it was described as a milk-based layered pastry with honey and pistachio. I ended up eating all of it later, it was very good and lighter than expected.

Back to the hostel, that’s pretty much all of the first day done. I’m joined in the dorm by one other guy from Amsterdam, he seems nice enough. He’s the second person in a couple of days to think I’m only ~24, maybe I should start using that? I do a few hours of planning Istanbul for the next few days but I’ll come to that as it happens!

Stalker report (including end of Athens): 4h 8m active, 26k steps.