Travel Day to Turkey

Posted on September 5, 2023  •  15 minutes  • 3126 words

When starting to plan this trip, I had the romantic idea of getting from Nice, France to Ankara, Turkey without stepping foot on an airplane. A combination of buses, ferries, trains and rental cars would be much more fun and adventurous, right? To be 100% honest, I don’t regret any of it…except maybe the final push from Sofia, Bulgaria? (Just kidding, I wouldn’t change a second of any of it!) But we had come this far, we couldn’t quit now. AND I think our whole family really does love fun #2. Maybe not Max, but hopefully he’ll grow into it.

For our final night/day in Sofia, we booked an Airbnb in town for 2 nights. We didn’t want to have to deal with our luggage all day until our 7pm train and we also wanted a place to be for part of the day as we were a bit tuckered out for our Bulgaria travels. Zero rush of a morning as our only plans were to see St Sofia Church and the catacombs below and Netzy (the building you usually see whenever you google ‘Sofia, Bulgaria’). And this was the kids well after the sun was up.

I was able to get work and some packing done in the morning. Packing now involved a bit more since we had the duffle and things seemed to kinda be all over the place after we emptied the car and dumped it in the place. But even with the duffle, we still just didn’t have that much stuff, so it was not a daunting task…and I love packing. Left overs for lunch and then we headed out. It felt good to be out and for the first time on the entire trip (not counting being drenched or staying in the mountains) it felt like maybe, just maybe fall was coming.

We rounded the corner and got our first glimpse of St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Technically Dan saw it on the tour, but it was for the boys and myself. It was a sight to see! So massive with giant copper roofs that contrasted beautifully with the stone walls.

And then the inside! I couldn’t stop looking up.

It went up forever and was just crazy cool. How did they build this?!? I’m not one for religion, an atheist if I had to give myself a label, but I do respect the architecture behind so many religious buildings. (I also have opinions on the money spent on them, but we can save that for another day.) It’s just awe-inspiring! The intricacies and the fact that they are still standing, yes lots have been rebuilt, it’s just crazy. We took it all in for a bit, wandering the nave and the side wings.

We felt we took it in as much as we could in limited time…or in 3yo time…and we headed just across the way to the Saint Sofia Church. The oldest church in Sofia, but the reason we wanted to go was to see the catacombs below that Dan had read about. Can you tell when the change in construction materials occurred?

They were pretty impressive, even more impressive knowing there was a full church above and then went down and down and down. There were old tombs, windows into probably more old tombs and so much space!

Even though I only got to experience 1 level as Max has a poop emergency, it seemed to go on forever. And even just the one level below was fascinating knowing what was above us. Although, I couldn’t help but think this would be a TERRIBLE place to be in an earthquake.

Dan’s photo of the boys going down another level.

We hit our ‘need to head back to the apartment’ time just as Dan and the other boys were heading out, gushing about how far down they went. We got back to the apartment and I set the kids about eating little things that I didn’t want to pack up. Sam found a coffee table type book and screams ‘MOM!’ I come rushing, having no idea what is happening and he responds “We’ve been there!”. Things like that make you forget the bad days and the meltdowns. It’s so worth it!

We packed up the last of the clothes and misc items, tried to book the Istanbul to Ankara tickets one more time (again unsuccessful) and were ready to go.

We had 28 lev, which I assumed was plenty as the train station was in town and about 1/3 the distance that the 22 lev airport taxi has cost. And worst case, we just get out when we have hit 25 lev and walk the rest of the way, right? Serious miscalculation on my part as the traffic was terrible and at 25 lev we would have still been too far for comfort to walk. Dan asked the guy if he took euros and thankfully, he did. Once again, we would have to raid Ben’s wallet and pay him back later.

All was well and we got there with plenty of time; so much time that our platform wasn’t announced yet. We ate left overs from the amazing Turkish dinner we had the night before, spent our lev in the market on pencils, gum, candy and extra water for the train…thinking there might not be any options once we boarded.

Excitement rose as we saw our platform show up and conveniently, it was the one right out the back of the station doors…no need to go down, under the tracks, and then back up as we had done too many times to count. As we walked along the train, it seems a bit off. Not sure how to explain it, but it seemed a bit under suited for a 12hr journey that we thought would pick up speed at one point.

We kept walking down, trying to find our car. Not feeling optimistic, I asked some locals if they spoke English and if they could help. A girl looked at my ticket and very quick said ‘oh, you are going to Turkey…it’s one of the first 3 cars.’ Clearly she knew something I didn’t. A few bad Bulgarian ‘thank-yous’ and I signaled to Dan that I thought I knew where we had to be. I wanted to be 100% confident as I didn’t want to lug luggage up and down, nor through 2 wrong cars; we did have the extra duffle now.

We found our car, loaded it all up (kids included) and found our very cozy room. It was as expected and we were all a bit excited. Kids probably to sleep on a train and I was excited to be getting to our home base after months of traveling around. So worth it, but I was ready. It was a bit of ‘sit here’, ‘move here’, ‘legs up’ and ‘hold this’ to be able to get all our stuff under beds and in upper racks so we could all actually sit. But we in and ready to go. I love Ben’s sense of humor showing ‘how big it was.’

Dan and Max hopped off for some last minute stretching and some photos.

We rumbled along, ate some dinner and read some Harry Potter. The excitement to be on an overnight train was REAL for these kids.

Dan and I couldn’t sleep as we knew we’d be woken up so soon and it was more of a ‘thrashing about’ along the tracks than a ‘lull you to sleep’ trip. At about 11:30pm we got to the border crossing (for leaving Bulgaria). Simple enough…guy comes on, takes passports, looks at us all, leaves, brings passports back. The train attendant was behind the passport control guy and when the left, the attendant asked us where we were from. We said the United States and he asked us if we had our evisas. We didn’t and he said, you need to get them or you can get held up at border and the train can leave without you. Full panic ran through my body. How did I not know about this? I always do my research! I think I was so focused on the trip TO Turkey, I never thought about Turkey, knowing I would once we got settled. Dan jumps into action mode with his computer out and phone hot spot on. I have the passports, ready to read numbers and dates. I think I was stressing him out by staring at him and asking him how he was doing. I know Dan well, he was stressing out like crazy, but to his credit, he hid it VERY well for Dan. We had about 20 minutes from when the train left (and the train took about 10 minutes to leave). Dan busted through the whole process in about 12 minutes.

Yes, I was looking at my watch, very covertly of course! We had email confirmations, screen shotted them and were ready to go. As we pulled into the border crossing to enter Turkey, we were nervous, but ready to go. I had heard that you want to get off quickly as the line gets long and I really didn’t want the kids awake any more than necessary. Joke was on me. We convince the kids to get up, place cookies at the top of my purse, grab EVERYTHING and hop off the train as we pulled in. There were a few people before us and we followed them to a very inconspicuous building where we got in line.

There were 2 lines and it was moving fast…that was until we got there. Listening to people talk and watching people fly through the line, it’s possible we were the only Bulgarian or Turkish people…or only people causing any sort of issue. When we got up the guy was really struggling with our situation and calling the other guy over and making a phone call didn’t seem to help. I stopped counting at 30 people that had made it through the other line while we were still standing there. I was slowly passing out cookies and trying to convince kids to stand or sit quietly. They had woken up and were crazy at this point. Maybe the cookies were a bad idea? I’m not sure if the guy gave up on us, or really made it through all 5, but he gave us our passports back and said something that we took as ‘good enough. Now go.’

We went outside and found a bench as we weren’t allowed back on the train while it was being checked. We sat for maybe 30 minutes while the kids ran around trying to pet cats.

Finally allowed back on, we did the same dance of getting out luggage stowed and everyone in beds.

It is now 2:30am and kids are not just crawling under the sheets to go to sleep. Dan read for quite a bit until we all fell asleep. I did actually get a couple hours of sleep, but woke up pretty early. Yup, sharing a twin bed with Max.

Good thing he is so cute…especially when he’s sleeping and not being a you know what.

I rolled over and saw Dan reading in bed. He told me that all the trains from Istanbul to Ankara are now sold out (except the super late one), so our plan to buy them in person was going to fail. What to do? We could stay a night in Istanbul and go the next day, but this would have been mentally hard. We were so close. I did a quick search and a one-way car would be $150 to rent and we could get there that day. We decided that was a great plan. Ha, little did we know. We rented one that was about a 10 minute drive from the train station instead of going to the airport, because that seems like a really good idea. Kids start stirring and woke up one by one starting at about 7am. Too much energy, but we were all excited to be in Turkey.

We had some cucumber, cheese and bread for breakfast and pulled into the station around 9:30am, 2hrs late.

The station had no ATM, so we found a spot to wait with our stuff while Dan went off to one he found online. Not sure how long it was, but it felt like a long time. We get in a taxi and give the address to Enterprise. We literally get dropped off on the ‘corner’ of a roundabout; no Enterprise in site. Ben and I leave the rest to wander around looking for it. No luck. Dan zoomed in on the PDF map in the email and it kinda looks like it’s in a mall. I head that way and low and behold, there is a tiny Enterprise sign halfway down the mall. Getting the car was easy and we walked out with the guy to the car. He gets the car running and doing the walk through with Dan as I attempt to fit all our stuff in. It was not easy and we had to take stuff out of the duffle to shove between stuff to get it to fit.

All loaded up and the guy waves us goodbye. We set up GPS to Bilket University and it’s about 5.5hrs. We don’t know what time the housing office closes, but we really want to get there before 5pm to be safe. No idea if that’s even safe though. We zip out of there, get on a highway and are on our way. Feeling good that it’s going to be okay and then Dan’s phone rings. “It’s a Turkish number, should I answer?” Umm, yes! He answers and it’s the guy from Enterprise to tell us he has our key. Huh? Yup, he started the car for us and then put the key in his pocket so if we turn off the car, we won’t be starting it again! I wanted to scream. I am so tired, worried we won’t get to Ankara in time and grumpy without my coffee. (If I drank coffee, I’d have to pee 45 minutes later and I didn’t want to stop). I pull off the highway into a random grocery store parking lot. Keeping the car on, Dan got out to get food supplies and the kids and I sit waiting for the key delivery. He comes back with a bunch of stuff and mentions that he credit card wouldn’t work, but he had cash. (This is important later.) The guy must have been driving like a bat out of hell because he was there in about 15 minutes. Key in hand and we do a quick test of turning off car and turning it back on, just to be sure we have the right key….confidence is low right now. All good and I do an annoying loop around of about 10 blocks to make a U-turn; there were no other options. Back on the highway and even though we are delayed, still feeling okay about making it with enough time. Dan starts patting his pockets, looks in his wallet and then pats his pockets again. “I don’t have my credit card,” in a half panic, half nervous voice. WTF?!?!?! Now I was going to lose it! I’m fuming and part of the reason I was so mad was with all this crap, I COULD have had my cup of coffee and peed before we were even really on the way. Off the highway AGAIN, looped around and back to the grocery store. Dan sprints in, back out card in hand. AGAIN I do the 10 block loop and AGAIN back on the highway heading through Istanbul. We got some pretty views and then over the bridge for the kids first trip to Asia.

After about 30 minutes things cleared up and it was a nice highway to drive on. Sign posted 140kph speed limit. Doing the math in my head…87mph!!! I told Dan I didn’t think I was comfortable even driving that fast. About 10 minutes later, clearly, I was comfortable because I just wanted to get there. Very uneventful ride, lots of small snacks and no bathroom break until just 20 minutes from Ankara. We even racked up some new license plates on a few cars and big trucks.

We get to the gate at the university and just minor confusion on getting on campus. We pull up to the housing office and our friend, Onur, is there! Lots of hugs and all is going to be well. :) Dan and him head inside and he points the kids and me to a park half block away.

So much running around and craziness, but they deserved it after the last 24hrs. Dan and Onur come back about the same time Onur’s wife, Gizedeh, and their daughter, Deniz show up. We get back in the car to follow them to our place. We get there and such a feeling of relief as we walked in. The place was perfect for us and knowing I could unpack and chuck my suitcase way in the back of the closet was just too much excitement for me. We had traveled so much, but were ready for a short-term home for a bit. Dumped our stuff and headed back out for some much-needed food with Onur and family. Quick stop at the market on campus so we’d have food in the morning and then we were on our way. Really nice feeling to sit down at a restaurant and just have food start appearing (thanks to our friends’ ordering for us). We were introduced to lamacun and it was love at first bite for all 5 of us. A baked flatbread with some minimal toppings, maybe cheese (kids have nicknamed it Turkish pizza, but it’s so thin and it’s not really about the baked toppings), but the best part is the parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, lemon, yogurt and a red sauce you put on top and roll up. The restaurant had a back area for kids to play and as soon as they finished eating, they were jumping up to play with Deniz. We were served tea, tradition in Turkey to have after a meal, and as we were finishing the little glass cup, another arrived. It seemed to keep happening and Onur joked that it’s almost a game as to who can finish the tea or deliver more first. Dan drank 4 glasses. It was SO time for rest, and we knew we’d see SO much more of our friends, so we wrapped it up and headed home to get sleep.