Where is Turkey?

vikingaero

The Bosphorus splits Istanbul in two. Cross the bridge from West to East and you are in Asia. Also a lot of European Car Breakdown policies only cover "Europe" and if you cross the bridge and break down you are on your own!

Loads of Turkish cars and trucks carry the EU numberplates with TR, even though it isn't a full member of the EU.

TimC

Turkey shares a western border with both Bulgaria and Greece; the border region is called Erdine (as is the principle town in that region), Erdine is over 120 miles from Istanbul, which as stated above is in both Asia and Europe (Europe the continent not the political union of states). The European part of Turkey is about the size of Wales; the Asian side is nearly 1,000 miles wide though!. Turkey's capital is in Asia (Ankara), it was Constantinople, but on being renamed Istanbul by Attaturk the capital was moved - it is still the largest city.

For the soccer fans, teams you may know of: Istanbul has three premier teams, Besiktas (pronounced Beshiktash, who beat Liverpool recently) and Galatasary are on the European side and Fenerbache on the Asian side.

The Grand Prix circuit is on the Asian side, as is the airport used by Easyjet - and it can take two hours by car to get across one of the two Bosphorous bridges, so the Turkish Airlines or BA flights into Attaturk may not be such bad value. Tell the taxi driver to take the sea or coast route - much more intersting, less frightening and usually quicker.

If visiting, you need to buy a visa at the airport - £10 for 90 days or 3 months (for some reason both exist), get the visa before you queue at passport control and watch smugly at the people who get turned away to join the back of the visa and then the back of the passport queues.

First time I went 5 years ago there was a foot of snow in Istanbul - not what I was expecting!

~evanesco~

noonesperfect wrote: »

could you write that in english please? :rolleyes: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Erm, 'Thanks everyone, I didn't need to order my ECHI card thing then' or something similar.:o

~evanesco~

TimC wrote: »

get the visa before you queue at passport control and watch smugly at the people who get turned away to join the back of the visa and then the back of the passport queues.

Thank you very much for this, I had read about needing to get a visa before entry, I'll make sure we get one before passport control.

Voyager2002

The answer to the OP's real question is, you absolutely must get travel insurance. And since most travel insurance policies also include cancellation cover, get it ASAP.

(NB when I first went to Turkey, my companion was ill and needed medical treatment. The total cost of a doctor's visit to the hotel, the two or three medicines he prescribed and all the other things we could think of to stick on the claim, came to a couple of pounds less than the policy excess. However, you need some kind of insurance in case of disaster.)

noonesperfect

~evanesco~ wrote: »

Thank you very much for this, I had read about needing to get a visa before entry, I'll make sure we get one before passport control.

I went to Bodrum last year and all you basically had to do was hand over an english £10 with your passport at passport control and you were "in". Passport stamped!
Scottish tenners aren't accepted.