This was my second time in Istanbul on this trip. The first was a stopover night before my Christmas trip to Thessaloniki & Meteora. At that time I managed to get into the city using the hotel free shuttle and see the beautiful mosques before my flight. Little did I know I would be seeing them again for all the wrong reasons.
My flight from Thessaloniki was running late so when I arrived in Istanbul I ran to the domestic terminal hoping I didn’t miss my flight to Van. Great I didn’t miss it; they cancelled the flight instead because of bad weather. So along with the throngs of disappointed people I queued for nearly 2 hours to get my refund. So my 4 days of New Year’s celebration in Van was not happening. This was my second attempt at visiting Van. Hopefully the third time will be lucky.
I found a quiet café with Wi-Fi and commenced notifying the hotel in Van of the situation and getting a refund. I then started looking for places to stay in the city. Luckily there were many options and even better, the prices were not going to be extortionate. I found Antis Hotel in the heart of Sultanahmet for approx. 35 Euros a night with breakfast. Not bad for the time of year and at such short notice. I figured out the metro so was able to get to Sultanahmet easily. On the way to the metro I met 2 Malaysian girls who were also trying to figure out the metro system. By some strange coincidence we were booked in exactly the same hotel. So we travelled together and looked for the hotel. We noticed that it started to snow as we got off the Metro. It was a flurry of snow and the girls really got excited. They had never seen snow before.
After a while we found our hotel. That would be the last I saw of the girls until the day they left at breakfast. The snow came down fast and strong and after a few hours came the blizzard. I stayed inside and hoped to go exploring the following morning.
What a morning. I woke up to a lot of snow. It had snowed all night and the whole of Istanbul was covered in beautiful snow. It was cold and I didn’t have the right shoes so it was a very slow and slippery walk around town. I wasn’t going to venture any further than the park and when I tried I slipped and fell.
The park was beautiful in the snow and even more so were the mosques. Many people came out to enjoy the unexpected snow. I pretty much spent the 4 days in the hotel, on the hotel roof and the park. I enjoyed the New Year’s fireworks from the hotel rooftop.
The next day I flew home. I did worry as there was still snow but all the flights were back on again. So I spent a lot more time in Istanbul than I expected.
