Rather than take the main road to Istanbul we diverted off up the coast road, a gravel track that clung to the edge of the clifs, offering great views across the Sea of Marmara.
This was certainly the calm before the storm - entering Istasnbul...
Without any GPS mapping nor paper maps of Istanbul, it was a case of following the direction indicator on the GPS to the waypoint marked for the location of the hotel - easy ?
It would be easy in a logical street grid layout city, or indeed one without roadworks, deadends, market streets, suicidal drivers. oh, and 38deg heat..
We stopped at the city limits (5km from the hotel), and gave ourselves 1 hour to find the hotel, otherwise we would hail a taxi and follow that. The plan was simple, the 3 of us would keep close together, blocking out any cars from separating us, very early use of indicators to show intended direction changes, and if the hazard lights were used then we had know idea where we were, or where we were going.
After 45 minutes we were 800m from the hotel, it then took a further 30 minutes to 'home in' to the hotel - hazard lights on all the way !!
The route of choice (??!!) took us into the Grand Bazaar, down the pedestrian streets (shoppers didn't seem to bothered!), and through the markets. We had pedestrians helping us to turn the bikes round on steep cobbled streets and street vendors moving their stalls to let us through. A beer was very welcome when we finally reached the hotel :-)
Spot the 2 silver crash helmets in the crowd...
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