Today started with a relaxed morning - breakfast in the lobby (typical Turkish), then used the spare hour we had to walk around the nearby neighborhoods and park.
We had the front desk call a taxi for us to get to the airport...pretty sure Tammy’s eyes were closed for most of the trip. It wasn’t as shocking as the first taxi ride, having now driven for a couple weeks and being used to the traffic patterns - they still leave zero room for errors though which how close they follow/stop.
We had the driver drop us at the International terminal (where we’d gotten the testing done yesterday), under the assumption that Croatia was an international destination. After searching for a few minutes we surmised that they must consider it a domestic flight since it connects through Istanbul, so we headed back through the airport to find the Turkish Airlines counter. Having sorted that out, we sat in a bar near the gate and had a drink. One last comedy of Turkish translation, somehow the Cuba Libre Don ordered and the Sprite Tammy ordered came as a combined drink - whatever...cheers to Turkey!
The flight from Izmir to Istanbul was a quick ~1hr flight, and since the cruising altitude was low, we were able to see the Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara, the alleged site of the city of Troy in the distance and some of the sprawl of Izmir.
After a somewhat sideways landing in Istanbul (crosswinds?), we made our way to the International Transfers terminal. Much of the airport here had been shut down for COVID, which made it look like it was a brand new airport waiting to be unwrapped for the first time (we guessed that they sanitized everything and plastic wrapped it to keep people off).
We initially thought they‘d closed the lounges, but to our delight we found our Priority Lounge was open and quickly went to check in. The lounge was AMAZING, with open bar, a variety of freshly cooked foods, many different seating areas, a pool table, showers and conference rooms - all for free (again from Tammy’s clever credit card use).
The lounge made the two hour layover time fly by, so we headed to the gate which was quite close. The Istanbul airport (IST to be specific) is very new and arguably rivals Heathrow in amenities/finishes.
On the second flight we started watching a new trending Netflix show Tammy downloaded called The Protector. We quickly realized that it was set in Istanbul and recognized much of the scenery from our time here - really made it connect with our trip! The flight was longer (a bit over two hours) but it went quickly and before we knew it we were in Zagreb, Croatia. We spent a long time in Passport Control, as it seemed there was intense scrutiny on paperwork (COVID?). When it was our turn, it went without incident and we went right through - yay! By the time we made it to Baggage Claim our bags were already waiting for us and we walked right through Customs.
Our next stop was an ATM to get cash out - $1 USD = 6.36 Croatian Kuna (HRK), then on to get a taxi. It was raining and the driver kindly came with an umbrella (honestly the rain felt good though). It was dark now (~8:45p) so we couldn’t see a lot on the taxi ride, which cost us ~$40. The driver dropped us on the right street but didn’t know where the building number was, so we had to figure out how addresses work here, in the dark 😳.
We’d intended to get a SIM card at the airport but didn’t find any stores there, so we were without internet - meaning no map and no email (which is where the instructions for late check in were). We eventually found the right building number and fortunately Tammy remembered enough from an earlier glimpse of her e-mail to unlock the night box for the card key and then find the right apartment inside.
As we settled in, the weather outside turned pretty bad. It looked a little more like home - with cooler temperatures and RAIN! We haven‘t seen rain in 30 days (except arguably for 5 minutes in Göreme).
Tomorrow morning we get to find out where we’re at for the next several days 😊.
Here is a simple map of Croatia’s shape and many of the cities we plan to see:
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