Istanbul

Our first stop was in Istanbul, Turkey. We left Northen Virginia on an 11:00 pm flight, arriving in Instanbul around 4:00pm the next day. It's about a 7 hour flight.

Getting from the airport to the hotel was quite an adventure. The traffic was unbelievable...and we thought traffic on 66 was bad, this takes it to a whole new level. We had quite a resourceful taxi driver who was able to get us to our hotel within an hour and a half instead of three hours because he took all kinds of alternate routes (it's only about 30-45 minutes away when there is no traffic). So, our first night in town was spent mostly settling in at the hotel, walking around a bit, grabbing dinner and then getting some sleep to adjust to the time difference. We stayed at the W Hotel, which was beautiful and set in a historic building just a block from the Bosphorous.
(note - photo from the W hotel site)