{"id":158,"date":"2007-10-10T23:13:01","date_gmt":"2007-10-10T13:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/?p=158"},"modified":"2007-10-10T23:13:01","modified_gmt":"2007-10-10T13:13:01","slug":"arriving-in-instanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul","title":{"rendered":"Arriving in Instanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"float: right\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1009507070974015\";\r\ngoogle_alternate_ad_url = \"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/google_adsense_script.html\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\ngoogle_ad_format = \"300x250_as\";\r\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text_image\";\r\n\/\/2007-06-30: TSBlog 300x250\r\ngoogle_ad_channel = \"2928184950\";\r\ngoogle_color_border = \"FFFFFF\";\r\ngoogle_color_bg = \"FFFFFF\";\r\ngoogle_color_link = \"FF6600\";\r\ngoogle_color_text = \"000000\";\r\ngoogle_color_url = \"339933\";\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\n  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>DAY 1 &#8211; Our journey this morning began at 4 a.m. when we had to make our way\u00a0to Leeds-Bradford airport and then to London, Frankfurt and finally arriving in Istanbul at 5.30 p.m.\u00a0 Arrival procedures included having to buy a USD20 visa stamp before going through immigration.\u00a0 There were huge rows of people\u00a0queueing for visas stamps\u00a0and initially caused a little panic in us, after such a long day on the road.\u00a0 Fortunately, the queues progressed quite rapidly and it wasn&#8217;t as horrific as we&#8217;d thought.\u00a0 There were different fees for different countries, majority of which falling into the USD20 category.\u00a0 Interestingly, the fee for Canadians was USD60.\u00a0 Some of the Canadians joked that probably their government had upset the Turkish government in their dealings and hence the penalty rates.\u00a0\u00a0I suspect that it&#8217;s more to do with trade relationships, and nationals from countries that had high trade dealings are exempt from fees.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, once we got our stamps and passed through immigration, our pickup and delivery to our hotel was very smooth.\u00a0 Our hotel for tonight was the Point Hotel, in Taksim Square.\u00a0 We were a bit disappointed about this as during our previous visits, we had always stayed at the 5-star Conrad Hotel which was\u00a0closer to the waterfront and many of the places of interest.\u00a0 The Point Hotel is a modern hotel, uphill from the waterfront and just off Taksim Square.\u00a0 Its redeeming factor is that the hotel is all hooked up to WI-FI and internet services in the rooms are free of charge.<\/p>\n<p>After our 4:00 a.m. start, we weren&#8217;t too keen to venture out for dinner and instead had room service and then caught up on some work on the net.<\/p>\n<p>Helen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DAY 1 &#8211; Our journey this morning began at 4 a.m. when we had to make our way\u00a0to Leeds-Bradford airport and then to London, Frankfurt and finally arriving in Istanbul at 5.30 p.m.\u00a0 Arrival procedures included having to buy a USD20 visa stamp before going through immigration.\u00a0 There were huge rows of people\u00a0queueing for visas [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-istanbul-turkey"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Arriving in Instanbul - Travel Signposts Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Helen Page\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul\",\"name\":\"Arriving in Instanbul - Travel Signposts Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-10-10T13:13:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/2b7dcded70f2aa245d7e022c5f58792b\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/\",\"name\":\"Travel Signposts Blog\",\"description\":\"Trip reports and latest additions to the Travel Signposts website\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/2b7dcded70f2aa245d7e022c5f58792b\",\"name\":\"Helen Page\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0ac567b58adfe133b2a1bc9410835be51b468de4fecdfef3ff32467124bebc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0ac567b58adfe133b2a1bc9410835be51b468de4fecdfef3ff32467124bebc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Helen Page\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\"],\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/author\/helen-page\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Arriving in Instanbul - Travel Signposts Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Helen Page","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul","url":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul","name":"Arriving in Instanbul - Travel Signposts Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-10-10T13:13:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/2b7dcded70f2aa245d7e022c5f58792b"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/turkey\/istanbul-turkey\/arriving-in-instanbul"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/","name":"Travel Signposts Blog","description":"Trip reports and latest additions to the Travel Signposts website","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/2b7dcded70f2aa245d7e022c5f58792b","name":"Helen Page","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0ac567b58adfe133b2a1bc9410835be51b468de4fecdfef3ff32467124bebc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0ac567b58adfe133b2a1bc9410835be51b468de4fecdfef3ff32467124bebc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Helen Page"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com"],"url":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/author\/helen-page"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}