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Our adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....
 
Our original plan had been, relax around the old town on Thursday, find one of The Big Shopping Malls on Friday then do The Boat Show on Saturday. So today was Friday, shopping day. During the night the snow had come down really heavy so we asked in the hotel about a taxi, but as the hotel was at the top of a couple of very large hilly streets, there was no way any cab was going to get to us. The man on reception gave us alternative directions, walk to the part of town were we had found the restaurants then get the train to the outskirts area where the shopping mall was. Great idea so off we set, we walked all of 3 miles in the snow and wind, (see picture of Eskimo Joan) found the station, o
nly to be told "big problem, train yok" which in Turkish means you've got no chance. So we set off back down on to the road, a passing cab was hailed and the man said "no problem". Now where have we heard that one before, we got about half way there, when a traffic policeman stopped all the cars at a major crossroads and said "yok". -There's that word again.- So the cab took us in to the centre of the newer part of Istanbul where we bought some warm dry socks and did a little window shopping. We did find this leather goods shop with his windows all dressed up for Xmas, either he hadn't taken the decorations out or he was incredibly early for 2004. We then spent a pleasant hour in a small Italian Bistro over a pasta and more hot chocolate, then we got the bus back to the hotel area and dug out the books we had brought with us and uncorked a bottle of wine from a local supermarket.In the evening we ventured out to the restaurant area again and this time we found a real super place. We had calamari and deep fried mussel starter, sea bass and a mixed salad, fresh fruit, coffee and a bottle of wine all for £14 each. There were one or two small parties of locals in there, so the band surrounded their tables and played some great music. The owner was an incredibly friendly guy who kept sending over glasses of Raki for us, so we walked home all toasty and warm
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