Istanbul (not Constantinople)...

I've been trying for the last week to book a holiday because I've got some time off work coming up soon. But try as I might, by the time I go for a run or a swim, make myself something to eat, get distracted with writing this blog and blah, blah, blah... Before I know it, midnight is upon me and I'm too punch drunk stupid to complete the task.

So, tonight I have not been for a run or a swim, I bought sandwiches on the way home so that I didn't have to faff around making food and I have forced myself to jump through the virtual hoops of every online flight and hotel booking service you care to mention.

I'd originally set my sights on Barcelona: I've never been and everyone tells me that I should. But then got distracted by Berlin earlier in the week; why, I'm not altogether sure. Having thought it over and rationalised it, I fixed my sites once more on Barcelona and then tonight, by way of a brief sojourn in Budapest, I booked a week in Istanbul.

Part of the problem I have with booking hotels is that I like them to be near a park so that I can run every morning. It's sad, I know but yes, I run even when I'm on holiday. I feel I get to know the place better if I run through it. And finding somewhere suitable to do that in a city you've never been to is no easy task. Google Maps helps and Street View is a godsend but these tools are not infallible.

When I went to Lisbon a couple of years ago, I found a hotel near Parque Eduardo VII. I checked it on Google Maps and it seemed ideal. It was only when I set foot out of my hotel that first morning that I realised you need to have the constitution of a mountain goat because of all the hills that Lisbon covers. And let me tell you, Parque Eduardo VII is on an incline so steep that even Bear Grylls would have problems scaling it. In Istanbul I'm staying in a an area near to the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia and (importantly) it doesn't seem to have too much of an incline.

And so exhausted and befuddled by the myriad of flights and hotels I've searched tonight, I'm off to bed with a smile on my face and Istanbul (not Constantinople) going round and round in my head.