Istanbul - Day 19 - Monday 15th September 2025 - Balkan-Georgia Trip - Day 19/34 - City 14/21 - country 9/11
- eusts6
- Nov 6, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 10, 2025
Today's mission was to pick up the previous day's laundry. As we had a metro card for 3 days, we were planning to make good use of it that day.
At 10:00, like good Dutch citizens, we turned up only to see the laundry place abandoned and no lights on at all. A guy in the restaurant next door called the lady, and we were told to return at 12:00.
We had breakfast at a nearby place because the price looked good; however, we discovered all the hidden extras afterward. Stanislav ordered a salad with coffee, and I ordered a simple omelette, and they weren't joking.
I was feeling optimistic when I saw the people across the road tossing dough high in the air and inserting the flatbreads in a large pizza-like oven. Baking didn't take long, and the very large flatbreads were delivered to our table still hot. The theatrics with the bread were the best part. After coffee, the waiter arrived at the table with two baklavas and two cute glasses of Turkish tea. I don't normally drink tea, but this was pretty good!
I paid up, and the bill was 1,400 liras with all kinds of hidden charges. I am almost sure that Ryanair must be running this place. We still had time before the laundry, so we went looking for the post office to send our postcards, which we had just written.
Now it was time to return to the laundry place again as agreed. Now the woman was there, but still no clothes. She then promised 13:00 and seemed surprised that this was even an issue. Well, not much you can do in an hour, and we still had to bring the laundry back to the hotel.
We took the tram out to the university area, but we were denied entry to the university itself. We took some photos of the area, then walked back through some markets. Again, men's underwear was on sale everywhere.
We were on time at the laundry, again the woman, but still no clothes... She called someone by phone, but she explained he was on his way. He arrived with large black plastic bags, but my beautiful yellow Jumbo shopping bag was gone! We got very annoyed, but they got twice as angry back; even the restaurant guy got involved, like what's the problem waiting 3 hours, we had to wash your clothes?!
That was half the day gone; we had to walk back to Galata and deliver the clothes back to the hotel. Stanislav knew that Agatha Christie's hotel, Hotel Pera, was in Istanbul. I had no idea, but when I looked up, to our surprise, it was very close. The hotel was all bling bling and glamour, with marble floors and gold-rimmed mirrors. We both ordered a Turkish tea; I mean, you kind of had to, right?
On the walk back, we saw an Irish bar called Finnegan's, where I had a quick red wine before our next move: the long metro ride out to Yeni Bosna.
Yeni Bosna was quite modern with blocks of flats and office buildings but showed no sign of Bosnian culture. We walked for a while, then discovered it was bringing us away from Yeni Bosna and closer to the airport. We took the metro back two stops and found a bustling shopping area with a mosque and several restaurants. We found a restaurant called "Balkan"; we were, after all, technically still in the Balkans!
There was a buffet where I had spicy chickpeas with rice, and Stanislav had an aubergine dish with ayran to drink. It was very reasonably priced indeed!
We took some photos and took the long ride back, changing at Şişhane and on to Finnegan's bar, where I was later joined by Stanislav. We ended up staying late because I made some new friends from Iran, using my rudimentary Farsi.
In a word #YeniBosna
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