We had visited Turkey and Istanbul specifically just shy of 10 years earlier. We had seen all of the major sights, markets, eaten as some nice eateries and all
at a time of year with nicer weather than now. Unfortunately flights from Turkmenistan are very limited and short of us having just flown out to Ashgabat and back
home again we didn't have much choice but to come through Istanbul. We also knew that Armenia was an outlier in this region at least for Kat and therefore we wanted
to find a way to include this.
Well we did find a way, however it meant us having a 12 hour connection in Istanbul and having to change airport. On the surface this isn't a bad thing, but in practice
the airports are on different sections of land split by a river and depending on route and Istanbuls traffic about 2 to 4 hours apart. Given we'd already been to Istanbul
we didn't feel it was worth getting a taxi into downtown, finding somewhere to pay and dump our bags for 6 hours and then get another taxi sitting in more traffic to the
other airport.
We decided instead to rent a car and had hoped the weather would be ok to explore the black sea coast line, beaches and rural Istanbul on route to the airport bypassing
the worst of the traffic. Unfortunately the weather we landed in was a storm, it was quite cold (around 8°C) and rainy. Still having our own car meant that we were able
to shelter and keep our bags dry at least.
Our plan based on time we had, not wanting to be too far from our airport destination and given the inclement weather was to head to the larger beach side town of Sile.
From looking at google maps we had figured that this place would have enough restaurants that we should find somewhere for a meal and drink as we knew we'd be hungry by
this point.
The town itself was very nice and had several forts and a nice feeling semi pedestrianised street with shops and restaurants. We could tell it was off season as a lot was
shut up and I imagine more was open than usual given it was a Saturday. Sile is a very local focused town and a lot of places were clearly more geared towards that with a
distinct lack of English spoken or on menus. That being said we did find a fantastic little place with a friendly owner who was running front of house and cooking meals.
For a long layover day in a city we'd already visited we couldn't have hoped for a much more pleasant day and it sure beat sitting in a busy, seat lacking, budget airport terminal. From here we left on a flight to Armenia.
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