What a long day (and a half)! Two long flights with a 7 hour stop in Singapore. (Singapore airport is amazing, so many duty free shops!!) The first thing Richard spots in Turkey is motorbike helmets at a duty free shop, seen something new already (so we have to take a photo of it). Now off to the hotel, and I foolishly presumed that we'd be able to get a map in the airport somewhere, but no such luck. I knew what part of the city we needed to head to, so we got on the metro (with a bit of help) and headed in to the unknown. Hardly anyone speaks English enough to have a conversation that is understood, so it was a bit difficult to find out where the hotel actually was. Using the metro turned out to be very easy and very fast, and then we ended up getting a taxi the rest of the way to the hotel. Alison has neglected to say we walked up hill for some time trying to find the hotel, given this is the city of seven hills it could have taken a while. In the end we found a taxi and after various indepth discussions between the taxi drivers we set off. I was hoping this would not end up like my Buenos Aires taxi experience and much to my delight it did not. 10 Lira and 10 minutes later we were at our hotel (photo above)

The hotel was a little hard to spot because it is also a cafe/ restaurant (with a roof top eating/ drinking area). The lady owner of Galata Life Hotel speaks fluent English, which was fantastic. We got there too early to book in, but we were able to leave our bags and she leant us a map and we were off exploring.