Destination: Greece & Turkey
Duration: 18 Days 17 Nights (Aug 06~Aug 23, 2012)
Day 15: Izmir –> Istanbul
Costa Atlantica docked at Izmir port around 8am so this
would be our last breakfast on board. Our English Speaking Hostess mentioned
that passenger who disembarked could basically stay until before the ship
sailed for the next destination – we still could enjoy lunch or tea break or go
for a swim or something as long as we cleared out our room before 9am.
A surprise was we found a sealed letter with 4 EUR100
vouchers (2 with our names on it and 2 without name) at out letterbox. Not sure
why we were given this though, perhaps they gave this to all the passengers? Or
to all 1st time passengers? Or maybe they felt sorry that they
cancelled all our booked shore excursion tour? Anyway the vouchers were only
valid for booking by end of 2012 and cruise before Aug 31, 2013.
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| Last Picture in Costa Atlantica near Florian Cafe |
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| Goodbye Costa Atlantica! Sammy and I will miss you especially our Obstructed View cabin 5146! |
Since we had a 2.30pm domestic flight to catch, we’d
decided to leave at around 10am so that we could have ample time to find our
way to Izmir Airport with train! So the question was whether we could find the
train station. Well, amazingly it was quite easy to find! Our experience was:-
1) Turn left after you came out from the port, walk
straight until a big main traffic light.
2) Walk straight again to pass the traffic light
and the train station would be at your left beside the main road. The walk from
port to train station was around 10minutes if walked slowly.
3) Get into the Train Station – follow a sign to
get to Izban train line. The Izban train line is at the back of the main
building.
4) Get a ticket to Izmir Airport - a transit is required though, from Alsancak
-> Halkapinar (1st stop) to get on the Cumaovasi route to Havaalani
(2nd last stop of the route).
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| Izmir Tourist Map - See the Railway Station? |
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| The Railway Station |
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| Looking for Izban Line |
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| The Alsancak Train Station Entrance for Izban Line |
How did we know which train to take? It was all thanks to
the friendly people at the Izban Train line! It was public holiday that day and
the place was practically empty with only a few workers/guards who didn’t even
speak English. They were so helpful by giving us direction with minimum English
and we were really glad that we ran into these guys. They also helped us to get
into the entrance as people actually needed a card to go through which we
obviously didn’t own and they only charged us 1 Lira per pax to get all the way
from Alcansak to the Airport! I hope they didn’t get into any trouble on this.
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| Get off at the 1st Stop to catch the Cumaovasi Route! |
When we reach the transit station (Halkapinar), we were
basically ‘adopted’ by 2 seniors who obviously knew that we wanted to get to
the airport thanks to our touristy look. They told us not to worry and just
followed them and they would tell us when to get down. They even scolded a
child when he started playing near our luggage. Wow! We were truly blessed to
meet friendly locals!
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| Random Photo from the Train |
We reached the airport before 12noon and printed out our
AtlasJet boarding pass through a self check-in machine. AtlasJet was a low-cost
airline (similar to our AirAsia) but with better service. They even served food
on board without additional charges. We were given a pipping hot sesame cheese
bun and sour cherry juice for our 1 hour journey.
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| Arriving Safely at Izmir Airport |
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| The Airport |
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| Color Printing at AtlasJet Self Check-in Counter |
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| Sesame Cheese Bun & Sour Cherry Juice |
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| Look at the Cheese!!! |
We were picked up at Istanbul and were sent to Daphne Hotel
in Sultanahmet. After so many days of non-stop exploring, we were simply too
exhausted and rested until dinner time to look for some food. The streets were
simply swarmed with people – I guess due to the public holiday.
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| Random Photo from the Plane |
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| Picture of City Wall from the Airport Shuttle |
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| View from our Hotel Room |
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| Building near our Hotel |
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| A lot of people!!! |
We ended up at Amebros Café – currently ranked 8th
out of 9637 restaurants in Istanbul. Unlike other restaurants that had waiters
calling out for customers, the customers just walked in continuously without
any urging. The café was quite small and quite full and we only managed to get
a table near the tiny exit.
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| Amebros Cafe |
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| The Interior |
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| Let's have some Drinks! |
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| The View from our table... |
We were quite lost on what to order and the waiter
recommended us Revan Kebab and Sehzade Chicken so we went with it. Turkish
bread and olives were served and we also decided to order fried calamari as
extra.
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| Turkish Bread & Olives |
The fried calamari was ordinary – it was fresh but simply
not that special and we’d had better calamari in Mykonos (link). So you might want to
skip this.
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| Fried Calamari |
The Raven Kebab was basically pieces of lamb cooked with
spring onions, garlic, flaked chili peppers and apricots in cream sauce served
with mashed potatoes. I was not a fan of lamb thus the lamb texture tasted just
all right to me. But the sauce! The sauce was really something else! The sauce
simply made this dish!
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| Revan Kebab |
Sehzade Chicken was chicken pieces cooked with raisins,
almonds, peanuts and cream and served with rice. I must say I loved this more
than the lamb. The chicken was tender and the sauce! OMG!!! This restaurant was
trying to KILL me with all the sauces! Strangely enough, the sauce tasted a bit
like sesame and nutty but yet so creamy! I’m ashamed to admit that I lapped up
all the sauces from both dishes with the Turkish bread and ate them all.
*facepalm*
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| Sehzade Chicken - This is the BEST!!! |
A wonderful dinner of course came with a price, this meal
set us back EUR50 with tipping. Apparently the waiter wrote on our receipt that
the price in menu didn’t include service charge thus hinting us for tips. I must
say I was not that familiar with tipping system but we tipped at the typical
10% rate. Guess the waiter was cursing us at the back for cheap tipping?
Hehehe.. I heard Americans tipped the most among tourists as they could tip at
25% but we were no Americans! =P We were given some kind of liquor at the end
of our meals which tasted like almond. Still preferred the lemony liquor at Naoussa Restaurant though (link).
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| Okay, they are famous! We get it! |
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| The Almond-y Liquor |
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| Is the waiter angry at us for Cheap Tipping? =p |
After the dinner, we simply walked around the area and
reached blue mosque. We took some pictures at the courtyard until the guards
closed the main gate at around 10pm. We would be having a city tour tomorrow
anyway so we simply called it a night.
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| Stalls at the Street |
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| Blue Mosque at Night |
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| Blue Mosque Courtyard Entrance |
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| The Main Building |
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| A Miniature! |
Next Day (Istanbul City & 2 Continents Tour)
Masterpost (Click this to get to day by day link)
