We never intended to spend a 24-hours in Istanbul. There are plenty of opportunities to plan to do so if you fly via Turkish Airlines. The airline offers free tour services to passengers with connecting international flights with layovers in Istanbul between 6-24 hours. There are different sightseeing options available depending on your schedule. A shuttle will bring you to and from the airport, a professional guide will give you the tour in English, all museum fees are included, and you will get a meal.
Our layover in Istanbul was far less planned. We were at Tegel airport in Berlin when we found out the first leg of our flight to Cape Town via Istanbul was delayed by two hours. Upon informing the lady at the counter that this would mean we would miss our connecting flight by 10 minutes, she seemed equally unconvinced we’d make it. But she checked us into the Berlin-Istanbul flight regardless with a useless piece of advice, “you will just need to run”. Well, it’s impossible to run backwards in time and we missed our connection flight by 40 minutes when we landed at 2:20am. The next flight to Cape Town would only leave in 24 hours.
Legal Tip: Under the EU regulation 261/2004, any passenger who experiences delays or cancelled flights, overbooking or denied boarding on a flight departing from or to an airport located in the EU, may be entitled to monetary compensation. Flight delay is based on the scheduled arrival time, or the time when the doors are opened on the plane. For a 2 hour delay, passengers are entitled to €250.For a 3 hour delay, the airline owes passengers €400. For flights delayed more than 4 hours, the compensation increases to €600. You do not need to accept a travel voucher. You are entitled to cash, a cheque or a bank transfer. Passengers are also entitled to meals, refreshments, 2 telephone calls or emails, hotel accommodation, and transfers to and from the airport depending on the severity of the delay.
On that sad note, the airline agreed to put us up in a hotel room. Luckily, we had quickly applied for an E-Visa for entry to Turkey for the South African while still in Tegel and I was able to enter with my German passport. Otherwise, we would have spent 24 very sad hours in a pretty useless airport.
After speaking with one airline representative after another, we finally received our hotel and meal vouchers and were ushered into a vehicle with many other poor victims of Turkish Airlines delays. For about an hour, we drove through the countryside (the new Istanbul airport is in the middle of nowhere) before we checked into our rooms at Kaya Istanbul Fair & Convention Hotel in Esenyurt, Greater Istanbul. It was only 5am before we were able to go to sleep.
That power nap didn’t last long. I had been to Istanbul once before and had a list of places to visit in a day. After a brief nap and complimentary breakfast, we asked reception for directions into the city. They wanted to get us a cab for $100, but Istanbul has a fantastic public transport system so paying that much to sit in traffic would have been ridiculous. I used the CityMapper app to find the way instead. Luckily, a bus rapid transport system (BRT) stop was just across the highway. We withdrew cash using the Monzo card, which allows free international withdrawals up to £200 per month, and paid for public transport cards. From the hotel to the Sultanahmet stop in town, it’s one hour and 20 minutes using a BRT and a tram.
What to See in One Day in Istanbul
The tram landed us right in the old town, where we wandered past the Blue Mosque, the Obelisk of Theodosius (an obelisk from Egypt with circa-1400 B.C. hieroglyphics, re-erected here in the 4th century A.D.), the Grand Bazaar, and, least but not least, Hagia Sophia. If you love art and history, then you must see Hagia Sophia. It was initially built in 537 AD in the Byzantine Empire as the main cathedral of Constantinople. In 1453, with the fall of the city to the Ottoman Empire, the church was converted to a mosque. In 1935, it became a museum, but then since 2020 it’s been a mosque again. So if you do visit, you will need to dress a little more conservatively than I did in 2019, but this time entrance will be free.
Alternatively, you can spend a few hours visiting the nearby Topkapi Palace Museum. If the weather is good, you can rest your weary legs on the grass in Gülhane Park. If you are hungry and adventurous, down the road by Galata Bridge you can try sandwiches filled with freshly caught fish. Picking out bones isn’t my thing, so I saved my stomach for syrupy donuts from nearby vendors and, more importantly, the best baklava in the world. If you cross the Galata bridge into the Asian side, down a road to the right you will find Karaköy Güllüoğlu – home of the traditional Turkish sweet treat. Ordering is a bit confusing, but essentially say “takeaway” and then point to the different varieties of Baklava you would like indicating with your fingers how many pieces you’d like. If you can speak Turkish, then never mind this advice. You can ask them to wrap it for the airplane so it stays fresh until you get home. We didn’t hold back when we ordered and barely paid a thing (~$11) for a big box. My biggest regret was not having bought more.
Packing Essentials
We hadn’t expected to spend 24-hours running around a hot city. So we didn’t have anything with us except what was in our carry-on backpacks, which was unfortunate, because all of our clothes were in the checked-in luggage. I had packed some fragile string lights – absolutely useless during a long layover. Luckily, we always have a spare set of clothes with us in case our baggage gets stolen or goes missing. We had limited toiletries, like contact solution and toothpaste, but luckily the hotel had stocked basic items in the room.
Unfortunately, when we returned to the hotel to catch our shuttle, we found that our onward flight to Cape Town was delayed by 4 hours to 6am. Should you find yourself in the unfortunate position of getting saddled with several hours in the Istanbul airport, there are a few things you need to know. Like other flashy airports more concerned with selling luxury items to the privileged few rather than providing essentials to the masses, it’s almost impossible to find bottled water in the Istanbul airport. Places like JFK and Heathrow will have newspaper stores selling overpriced water. Istanbul had none of that. We searched for an hour before we found a McDonalds with bottled water. (Bonus tip: these benches aren’t terrible for sleeping.) Naturally, without water you dehydrate and a headache develops. There was no Tylenol or Advil to be seen anywhere. Pack some.
In the end, the 24-hour unexpected delay home wasn’t so bad and I would consider consciously planning in a stopover again in the future. You know, to stock up on baklava.
