October 30, 2025

adventure, all part of life, Europe, photoblog, review, travel, Turkey

Labor day 2025: Istanbul, Cappadocia and Amalfi coast trip

October 30, 2025

adventure, all part of life, Europe, photoblog, review, travel, Turkey

One complaint I get from folks who go to the blog to get travel tips is that they have to go post to post backwards. There is no link from day 1 to day 2.. as I write in start to end sequence. My walking buddies suggested that everytime I finish a “series of posts”, there should be a summary post that describes the placed we stayed in, times between locations, etc.. something that they can literally cut and paste for a future itinerary. So for the first time trying that.

Click on the images to see the individual posts..

Day 1: Fly out of SFO to Istanbul. Start Friday afternoon. Reach Saturday afternoon local time in Istanbul airport.

Day 2: Two hours to reach hotel in old Istanbul area from Airport. Check in, change and visit Grand Bazaar, then walk around, see the Grand Cisterns and have dinner outside the Cisterns at a roof top restaurant, walk around the Sultanahmet mosque and square and get back to hotel.

Day 3: Sunday (Grand Bazaar is closed) All day walking tour of Istanbul with Viator. Hippodrome, Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, catwalk at a mall, lunch break on our own, back to hotel, then Topkapi palace, back to hotel, then a night cruise on the Bhosporus strait.

Day 4: Monday : Another morning at Grand Bazzar and walking around, then go to Hammam for 2+ hours, lunch near the Hammam place and back to hotel, pack and leave for Airport. Fly from Istanbul to Nevshehir and a long ride to Cave hotel in Kapadokya (Cappadocia).

Day 5 Tuesday: Wake up to see the ballons, then go on an all day Viator tour of Kapadokya. Open air Museum at Goreme, Lover’s hill, Pottery at Avanos, buffet lunch, Imagination point, PInk Valley, underground city of Kaimakli, Pidgeon valley, Uchisar castle, stop for buying Turkish delights, back to Cave hotel. Walking around the Goreme village at night and a dinner in Indian restaurant.

Kaimakli underground city, Pidgeon valley and Uchisar castle

Day 6 Wednesday: Cancelled Ballon ride. Spend time in the village, drive to Nevshehir airport, fly to Istanbul, wait, fly to Naples (basically entire day in cars, airports), drive from Naples airport to Sorrento hotel.

spending time at cave hotel and off to Naples (all day travel via Istanbul)

Day 7 Thursday: Walking Food tour in Sorrento followed by visiting Church and Cathedral. Back to hotel and walk to the water to spend time in the sea in the public area. Back to hotel, change, visit city center for dinner, followed by sunset viewing.

Day 8 Friday: Drive to Ercolano to see the buried city of Herculaneum. Then drive to Pompeii to see buried city there, lunch at Pompeii, drive back to Sorrento, short break and Kayaking in sunset in Sorrento.

Day 9 Saturday: Say bye to Sorrento, load luggage, drive to Positano, spend time seeing vertical village, lunch, then drive to Naples hotel. See the Naples City center, Castle, Galleria Umberto, Via Toledo, ice cream, take out dinner which we had back in hotel with the little one and pack.

Day 10 Sunday: Early morning flight from Naples to Rome and Rome to SFO and back by Sunday late afternoon. Time to recover in time to head back to office Monday!

Had to take five days off instead of 4 as Turkish airlines flight time moved earlier. So had to take off Friday before labor day.

There was something for everyone in the family in this trip. No check in baggage. Managed to pack only clothes (fortunately summer clothes) and do a 9 day trip with a carry on bag each. Did not buy anything that would add to weight. Didn’t take laptops on trip. It was an exercise in luggage frugality. Enjoyed it thoroughly.

Hope this summary post helps you better. If it does drop me a note or let me know on FB and will do this for all future trips.

Sundar Narayanan

October 7, 2025

adventure, food, jr., little one, photoblog, photography, portrait, travel, videoblog, Turkey

Family vacation - something for everyone - Day 1 Istanbul

Sundar Narayanan

October 7, 2025

adventure, food, jr., little one, photoblog, photography, portrait, travel, videoblog, Turkey

Our trips for the year are usually planned by end of January.. at least till Thanksgiving. The kids rarely commit for family trips. This year we planned a trip to Istanbul for Labor day. My college mates had done a mini reunion in Istanbul that I could not attend earlier. To make up for it, wanted to see the city with family. San has been going nuts watching Turkish soap operas since Covid and has also been craving a visit. I also wanted to see Kapadokya. The kids were not so keen. As an appeasement move we combined to different wish lists. Spend half the vacation in Turkey, and the other half in the Amalfi coast in Italy. Our friends had visited recently and gave the place rave reviews. The kids being interested in cuisine wanted to do this leg. Not that we had an issue.

After a lot of haggling, we planned the Turkey leg and they planned the Italy leg.

Original plan was to take the four remaining days of long weekend and go. Thanks to some flight timing changes between the time we booked and the actual trip, had to take the Friday off as well and go to the airport by Noon. Turkish airlines is excellent and we had a direct flight from SFO to Istanbul. The car ride to our hotel (an excellent place to stay in old town) called Carina Gold Hotel was a long one. We also ended up waiting 45 minutes to get our Taxi at the airport. By the time we reached the hotel we were tired. After some turkish tea, we decided to go sightseeing. This hotel is walking distance from most of the sights in old town area.

We were told by the hotel staff that the Grand Bazaar would be closed the next day.. so we were in luck to visit the bazaar for an hour and a half. The day also happened to be some special holiday in Istanbul, which explained the crowds everywhere and the traffic to reach the hotel.

My grad school buddy Sedat, who is now a professor in Gebsi in Istanbul was constantly in my mind. Had told the family so many stories of our time together that they wanted to meet him and his family. However we missed each other on the coms (we were both trekkies and would sit and watch Simpsons and Star Trek with our third buddy Indra, who is also a Professor). At that time I also wanted to be a professor, but my dream wavered. He must have got the hiccups when i was thinking of him. If I wasn’t the shops reminded me.

We saw shops as far as the eye could see, bought some stuff, took some cheesy pictures and were off to our next stop.

The grand Cistern. This underground water storage place with giant pillars had an audio visual show for 20 mintues. We enjoyed it thoroghly.

We saw this cat feeding station. You can pay and the cats get food! There were cats everywhere. The kids were happy. I was immediately concerned about allergies!

After that we went for a walk around the market in Sultanahmet mosque area. After some ice cream and window shopping we got a feel for the city. Then we went to find dinner at a rooftop restaurant. It was a lot of climbing to the fifth floor but worth it. They had vegetarian food. After a nice dinner we walked back to the hotel.