Welcome to my travel diary – the Martini Diaries (named after my favourite cocktail). In episode one we make a brief visit to Istanbul. I made the journey in May 2024, on business, and stayed just three and a half days. My personal time was limited to just a few hours on the Friday afternoon/evening – but, as always, I managed to pack plenty into my schedule!

I flew from London Heathrow on the 12.55 pm British Airways flight. It takes about 4 hours flying time, plenty of time for a glass or two of champagne and a light meal, catch up on some work, and chat with my travel companion, Dr Maria. We landed ahead of schedule, cleared immigration with no queue and found ourselves with our suitcases within just 20 minutes of landing – in an airport the size of Istanbul that is some achievement. It was still only 7.15 pm (Istanbul being two hours ahead of UK time), and the car I had ordered from Blacklane to pick us was due at 7.50 pm. We sat for a while in the terminal and then decided to wait outside. At 7.45 pm, having exited to the driver pick-up point, I received an email from Blacklane saying, sorry, but they could not fill my order – ‘Sorry for any inconvenience caused’! Inconvenience – five minutes notice of no driver, when I had placed the order two weeks ago! The first time Blacklane have ever let me down. Not impressed, we tried to return into the terminal to find another travel option – but security would not let us in! However, we spotted the taxi rank (there must have been thirty taxis in the queue), and quickly found ourselves in one and heading to the hotel.

Here I must mention the taxi drivers in Istanbul. They are usually very polite and friendly, always willing to agree a price before you start (essential!), and they do prefer cash (Euros rather than Turkish Lira). However, their driving is not for the faint hearted. 120 or 130 km is the norm, and they love an open road. It pays not to look out of the front window.

My hotel was the Istanbul Mall Hilton (where my conference was taking place). Located in the northern part of Istanbul, it is just 20 minutes from the airport, but a further 30-40 minutes from the old City. Not quite as convenient as staying in the Galata, Beyoglu or Pera districts, but still a great hotel. I have stayed in this hotel twice before, and really enjoy it. It has a lovely spacious and light feel to it. Plenty of marble and floor to ceiling windows. The staff are excellent, the bar very well stocked, the food local and reliable, and there is a very good gym, swimming pool and spa. It is connected through a rear exit directly into the Mall (the largest Mall in Istanbul). The bedrooms are spacious, with a large bathroom, tea and coffee, mini bar, iron and ironing board and plenty of coat hangers (always a thing for me!).

On Friday afternoon, after two and half days of non-stop work, it was time to explore Istanbul. I could easily spend my entire stay in Istanbul at the Sultanahmet area. It is everything that Istanbul represents to me – antique, chaotic, full of wonderful smells, packed with people. Once the fulcrum of the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman Empires, it is scattered with historic buildings, the once imperial grandeur of this part of the world. On this visit I decided to go to the Basilica Cistine for the first time. The queue to enter it was huge, and time crunched as always on my trips, there had to be a fast track system in place. I found it online on my ‘phone. The usual entry price is €20, but for a small extra €6, a total of €26, you could pay on your ‘phone, download a barcode and bypass the whole queue and enter immediately. The added benefit is the pass is valid all day, so unlike the other attractions around the world you are not restricted to a particular window of time. Why spend an hour of your day in a queue for the sake of an extra €6?

You enter the Cistine down a long flight of stairs, into an extraordinary underground reservoir. Built originally by Emperor Constantine it dates back past the sixth century. In its day it contained 80,000 cubic metres of fresh water, and was used to supply the Palace of Byzantine Constantinople, and in the Ottoman period, the Topkapi Palace. I had to keep reminding myself that I was deep underground with streets and buildings above me. The attractive roof, made up of many many domes, is supported by 336 columns arranged in 12 rows. Metal walkways have been mounted throughout the columns to enable you to walk through the entire facility. I sense it is about the size of a football pitch! The only challenge are the tourists with their wretched selfie sticks – twice, these people lacking any sense of spatial awareness, nearly barged me into the water!

After its full renovation in 1987 (when some 50,000 tons of mud apparently were dredged out of it!) a lot of atmospheric lights have been added, which periodically change from red to yellow to green adding much to the amazing atmosphere. Although I walked around the whole facility in about 20 minutes, the best view is in fact at the end, where halfway up the exit stairs there is a balcony, which allows a fantastic view back across the whole Cistine. The final bonus for me, as a lifelong fan of the early James Bond films, was to remember that one of the scenes in From Russia With Love was filmed in here – a chance to tick off another must-visit Bond location on my list.

The Haghia Sophia is the dominant feature outside the walls of the Topkapi Palace and a two minute walk from the Cistine.

The massive queues to enter can be off-putting, especially with the vast numbers of locals who try and tempt you away with private tours and skipping the lineups. Best just not to make eye contact with any of them (or try and say a few words to them in German – that always seems to confuse them!). If the queue is short, it is though always worth a visit. It is singularly representative of the Byzantine Empire at its peak of its power.

It is worth remembering that one has to remove ones shoes to enter, and, as you enter the nave, it is a truly awe inspiring moment. Unfortunately, this is the point when most people stop and just stare. They stop of course on the entry carpet, so you can imagine over the course of a day, how unpleasant that becomes with thousands of damp, moist, sweaty feet standing still. My advice is to make a rapid movement past that point and then turn round and look. I once entered here with two colleagues who went in barefoot, and still remember the look on their faces as their feet touched that gross spongy carpet!

The central dome is 32 m in diameter and 55 m above the floor. It seems to be suspended in the air. There are two further half domes joining the central dome, creating a massive sense of space and with beautiful lighting from some 40+ windows it is extraordinary. Once seen, never forgotten. Further inside, away from the static crowd staring in awe, it is a lovely place to just wander. A building of such magnificence in design and construction needs time to take it in. On the right hand side in the south Gallery, again for the James Bond film aficionados amongst you, you can find the base of the marble pillars where, in From Russia With Love, a key moment in the film took place with the passing of a secret message.

Outside, and a short walk away, there is also the Blue Mosque, and the museum of Turkish Islamic Art, and then a wide boulevard style area known as the Hippodrome. This was, in the Roman and Byzantine periods, a stadium, most notably for chariot racing. It is some 480 m long and 117 m wide. Rumour has it that in its time some 100,000 spectators would have gathered around it to watch the sport. There is the Egyptian oblique, the Serpentine column, and the column of Constantine to gaze in wonder at. I love the fountain of Kaiser Wilhelm II, where fresh water can still be obtained from the taps.

If you then head in the opposite direction and walk for 10 minutes, you come to the Topkapi Palace, with its various museums and artifacts. Even if you do not go in, architecturally it is stunning, and being above the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, you can begin to get a sense of how strategically important the location must have been in the Byzantine and Ottoman era.

No visit to this area of Istanbul is complete without going to the Grand Bazaar. It is only a 10 minute walk from the Haghia Sophia. Dating back to 1453, it now contains 66 covered streets and some 4,000 shops. The crush of people can become intimidating, as can be the aggressive tendencies of some of the shopkeepers to lure you into their shops, but it is all part of the chaotic charm of this unique historic jewel. And then there are 20 exits (which nearly all look the same), so it is very easy to become disorientated. It is generally divided to certain areas, such as gold and silver, carpets and rugs, food, and then the remaining streets and sub-streets off those seem to have a plethora of fake and replica goods.

I have been building up a collection of fabulous Turkish towels over my past 3 visits, and was pretty confident I could find the towel shop on entry. That was a mistake! It took me nearly 30 minutes to find that shop again! But, what fun to wander around an historic location and imagine what it must have been like before Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Chanel fakery became a thing. The one strange aspect is that the Bazaar closes at 7 pm, whereas everything else in Istanbul seems to open and thrive until the very late hours of the day. Also, it does not open on Sundays. You will need to be prepared to negotiate (or haggle) at a certain price point for some items (nothing has a price tag on it) but at the low price point (such as my towels) it hardly seems worth it. I always come away excited from my visits, but always surprised by the numbers of Europeans clutching arm fulls of fake Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Why buy imitation and pretend you own the real thing? But that’s another story!

On this particular visit, my work schedule was such that it was only possible to dine out properly one night. So, after my successful towel purchase in the Bazaar, I headed off for a much-needed cocktail and supper. I managed to find a rooftop terrace restaurant close to Sultanahmet and the Grand Bazaar. I love roof top bars and restaurants. It was called the Deraliye Terrace. Situated above the Sura Hagia Sophia Hotel, it is a specially constructed terrace, five stories above ground, with panoramic views of the city. You almost feel that you could touch Haghia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

You can see the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus, and the Golden Horn. A simply stunning location. I ordered a dry martini, and a slice of lemon peel, but I’m not quite sure what I eventually had to drink. The vermouth was a cross between a sweet and a dry, with an orange hue, and then two olives, not a slice of lemon peel. However, at this stage of a very long day, I was not in the mood to have a disagreement with the barman, so I simply embraced the mystery!

I was presented with the menu, which was full of photographs of the food. I remember many years ago on a visit to Sardinia, when my Italian hosts told me that when I went out to dinner, I should avoid any restaurant that has its menus in English, German, French and Italian, and just focus on those in Italian, and also to avoid anywhere where they feel they need to share a photograph of their food. However, the photographs here were stunning, and an excellent aid to making good choices. I went with the cheese sailor pastry, made with mixed Turkish cheeses, honey and currents. Delicious. Lamb Beyti kebab, served with mixed vegetables followed. Somehow the lamb tastes different in Istanbul. Not in an unpleasant way, just different, and again, of course, delicious. I was too full to be able to enjoy pudding, so a cognac and a Turkish coffee finished the meal perfectly.

We had ordered our cocktails at 6:30 pm, and with the leisurely pace with which the food came and the drinks, and with the conversation flowing with my three amazing dinner guests (thank you Maria, Sharon and Rameez), the time disappeared. It was 10:30 pm before we knew it, and our surrounding scenery has changed from a stunning blue sky, to a magical vista of sparkling lights and sounds of Istanbul at night. The Blue Mosque at this stage of the evening was simply stunning. Photographs or videos could not do justice to the amazing location – if you are ever in Istanbul you must eat here!

Work continued the next morning on Saturday, and we finished our conference at 2 pm. I headed down to the swimming pool for a leisurely swim, and then, a great treat, a Turkish Bath and massage in the Navitas Spa in the hotel. I cannot begin to describe joy of a full Turkish Bath, you must experience one to understand! At the end of three and a half intense days it is the perfect way to unwind.

At 5 pm our Blacklane car arrived (thank goodness!) and we were whisked off to the airport for our return flight. In passing, I must comment on the lounge British Airways uses at Istanbul airport. I am very privileged, as a result of my frequent flyer status, to enjoy the use of many airport lounges around the world. However, the IGA Lounge has to be the worst lounge in the world. Over crowded, filthy dirty, virtually no staff cleaning it, and perhaps just a product of what happens when you build a large lounge and open it to everyone – the food stations resemble ‘feeding time at a zoo’ as passengers load their plates and push and shove to the front. Truly shocking.

Our flight left a little late, but nothing to worry about. A lovely meal on the British Airways flight, chasing the sunset to the West, and landed back in London at 10 pm.

I won’t bore you with the nearly one hour wait for our suitcases, but I eventually made it home at 1 am, and was sound asleep by 1.30 am. Next thing I knew it was 10 am, and time to start my Sunday! See you next time – when we visit Chicago at the end of June!