Hooray for travel! After having time at home in the last school holidays, we were both feeling itchy feet, so decided to plan a trip to Spain and Portugal, where both of us hadn’t been and both wanted to go to. The April holidays looked like a good time since it was spring in Europe and hopefully not as busy or as hot as summer.
Since I have an allergy to long haul economy flights, and our favourite carrier Singapore Airlines don’t fly to Portugal, we tweaked things a bit and took Air Asia to KL where they then have a lie flat premium economy to Istanbul, where we could take a shorter hop on Turkish Air to Lisbon. This all sounded pretty straightforward. I’d not noticed until we started booking that the two Istanbul flights weren’t at the same airport, but at least it means we could break the journey with an overnight hop into Istanbul. We also didn’t realise that Air Asia, with their self-transfers need you to collect bags in KL (going through immigration) and re-check, which can’t be done until 4 hours before the flight. But you can go through security exactly six hours before the flight!
We’d booked an airside transit hotel in KL for a couple of hours of sleep, which we didn’t get to utilise as much as we’d hoped, but we did get a couple of hours.
Air Asia premium is quite comfy, but the ‘lie flat’ is diagonal rather than flat, and you only get one meal thrown in over the 12 hour flight. Given the price difference between this and the legacy airlines’ premium economy or business, plus the bonus of not needing to fly through the current ‘do not travel’ zone, it’s definitely a good choice, and both of us got a little more sleep on the flight.
In Istanbul, instead of an airport hotel, we booked a little place in a small town about 20 mins away from the big airport, on the Black Sea coast, Karaburun. The airport shuttle between the two airports was pretty easy once we’d identified which bus it was, and we rumbled our way past the city of Istanbul and up to the northern coastline, crossing the Bosphorus via a giant bridge.
Once at the airport, we transferred to a minibus for the drive to Karaburun. This was a little more hair-raising than the big bus, as our driver seemed to want to get this done as quickly as possible, over the dilapidated roads that bounced us all over the place. We got there in one piece though, and checked in at the Villa Siesta, a nice hotel overlooking the Black Sea beach.
We went for a sunset wander along the beach, mingling with lots of families enjoying the evening, and stopped for some dinner in a small restaurant nearby, sharing menemen and kofta and chips.
The next morning was drizzly, and after a delicious breakfast at the hotel, including R having a Turkish coffee so thick his spoon stood up, we made our way back to the airport (at a much more decorous pace than the previous day.) The usual airport queues were waiting for us, but we were able to wait in the Turkish airlines lounge, which boasted freshly made gozleme, a huge buffet of dips, salads and olives, and a chance sighting of the Turkish shooting team (who had sparked a thousand memes at the Olympics.)
Our flight to Lisbon was slightly delayed and very full, but other ways very uneventful.
Two Weeks Away 