Turkey : October 2025

 Start: Wednesday 8^th Oct

This is a Saga holiday, a tour of historic sites in western Turkey, operated by  Titan Travel that is owned by Saga. 

We normally organise our own holiday so it’s a weight off our shoulders that it’s all laid on. Saga’s pick-up arrives to take us to Heathrow at 4:45 am on the dot so we’re there well before our 10:35 am flight to Istanbul. 

We enjoy a good flight with BA, and we’re met on arrival by our tour guide, Ali. Ali is Turkish and speaks excellent English. He welcomes other tour members as they arrive in the Titan assembly area. Soon all 26 of us are checked in and we follow Ali to the tour bus, a modern air-con coach. 

It’s late afternoon as the coach sets out for our hotel in the old quarter of Istanbul, the European part of the city: the Asian part lies across the narrow Bosphorus strait.  Ali warns us of heavy traffic, so we can expect a couple of hours ride to cover the 30 miles. But no worries for us passengers - that’s our driver Hussein’s problem. 

The journey progresses as forecast and it’s 7:00 pm and dark when Ali informs us we’re nearly there. Hussein expertly drives the big coach through the narrow sloping streets on this final leg. 

Ali’s on the phone, and straight after makes an announcement, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid there’s a problem. I just phoned our hotel and, er, we aren’t actually booked in. And they’re full….this has never happened before in my 26 years as a tour guide….we’re working on finding an alternative….”  Well, perhaps we should have made our own arrangements! 

Ali has quickly organised dinner at a local restaurant to give himself time to sort things out. More narrow streets, but good service and food when we get there, and a happier mood after eating and a few drinks. Quick photo below of the restaurant shows it’s quite plush, although the local diner’s expression suggests his kebabs are repeating on him.

In the background can be seen, just about, the street band playing vigorously. All band members seemed to be playing from different pieces of music judging by the discordant result, and I wondered initially if they were snake charmers. If so, the snake wisely stayed in its box. 

Good news! Towards the end of the meal, Ali proclaimed we had been upgraded to a 5 star hotel as recompense. In fact, all our hotels would now be 5 star as a goodwill gesture. Here, we actually had a suite of two rooms with a marble bathroom, shown in the second photo. The shower, at the far end, was itself a marble room with heated floor and walls, a sort of Turkish bath. Impressive, but overkill if you just wanted a quick shower.