We are here!

Our final flight to our destinations was a short 4.5 hours from Abu Dhabi to Istanbul. We had left Melbourne at 9.30am on Wednesday. When we finally arrived at Istanbul, it was Thursday 9.15pm! Total time in the air was almost 20 hours spanning 3 flights! Luckily, I'm a sleepy head who can snooze anywhere and in any position, but with age catching up, my body was protesting the long flight times. 

On arrival, we were pleasantly surprised to be met at the gates by airport staff to get us fast tracked through passport control and a porter to carry our bags! With the great service provided to us by BMW, we whisked through and were seated in our van to the hotel within 30 mins. It would have probably taken us another hour had we gone through the normal plebeian lines, it was at least 5 times the length!

From the Atartuk airport to W hotel, thought us roughly 45 mins and we had a few glimpses of the local traffic and some of the tourist sites we will be visiting...

I spotted the Police as we were approaching our hotel, surprised to see them holding machine guns and by the time I recovered, my photo of them were not very clear!

W hotel was at a busy little intersection, unassuming on the outside, flying the BMW M flag and looked to be filled by M experience guests. 

After a quick check in and a refreshing shower (felt sooooo good), we hit the pavements ahead of the start of our official experience (dinner at 7).

We wandered with our tour guide (Jeffrey) to our first location, a little bakery shop with sweet and savory baked goods. 

The owner and his son spoke little English, and we finally managed to use time honored finger pointing and holding up how many fingers to indicate what we wanted, and he had a calculator to show us what we owed. 

We wandered next to the Besiktas Fish Market, with its unusual structure. 

And had some kebabs. 

The mussels looked yummy, but we hesitated to try them with the late summer heat...

The eagle has landed! 

We then wandered to Kafadaroglu baklava and had some sinfully sweet baklavas!

Now pretty full and a little hyped from the sugar, we made our way back to the hotel. On the way we saw this cart going up and down the street selling his herbs. 

Back at W hotel, with an hour to rest up, I sit outside our room, writing this blog...

Time to get ready for tonight's events! To be continued....