Here is part two of my trip.
SFO - IST in Business on Turkish Airlines - Here
IST - FCO in Business on Turkish Airlines - YOU ARE HERE
FCO - IST in Business on Turkish Airlines - Didn't take pics!
IST - SFO in Business on Turkish Airlines - Here
I got off the plane and we were bused over from a remote stand. It was up a flight of escalators and I was in a terminal of Ataturk Airport. I got lost twice because I didn't know which way the terminal was and it was a bit frustrating… that or I was jet lagged.
I finally found the Turkish Airlines lounge after what seemed like a 15-20 minute walk past many gates and moving sidewalks.
I was pretty excited for this since I had heard so much about the lounge and I had a good 4 hours to kill here.
Entrance into the lounge was pretty straight forward, scan your boarding pass and you were in. The lounge was filled with throngs of people from what I can imagine were many people connecting in on arriving flights from the US and elsewhere making their evening connections onward.
Here is looking in from the main entrance.
Here is an action station where they were serving chicken teriyaki and rice to promote their new flight to Tokyo (9 days later it would be a tikka masala station promoting their flights to India).
Further inside was this massive atrium and you really got a sense for the size of the lounge. It felt like an upscale Turkish park/mall/food court. It was amazing.
I stumbled upon one of several food stations that seemed to have the standard items on a Turkish mezze.
Here was a golfing simulator.
Next to a remote controlled car racing course, however, it wasn't working.
Next to two PlayStation 4 consoles.
Finally found a place to sit and grab some food next to a piano that was playing itself.
About ten minutes later the buzzer went off letting me know that my shower room was ready. I dropped off the buzzer and my boarding pass for the shower key.
About 30-minutes prior to my boarding I left the lounge and made the trek to my gate. One thing I noticed about IST is that it felt like there were hardly any windows. I felt like I was walking through fluorescent lit corridors the whole time… or maybe I was just jet lagged… oh well.
An Airbus A320 would be whisking me away to Rome for this late night flight.
I apologize but there were much less photos than the first leg since the flight was a shorter duration and I was tired.
Business class on this plane was the standard intra-Europe set-up with economy seats and the middle seat closed off.
Leg room was decent for my 5'8" height.
A menu was again distributed along with the same type of drink as my previous long haul flight (photo missing).
The doors were closed and we were off on-time. There was only 1 other PAX in the front of the plane.
No amenity kit was distributed.
There was no personal IFE, there was a drop down screen from overhead but that played programming.
When we reached altitude, meals were quickly distributed with the first course plated on the tray. Finally the main was then brought out. This shrimp turned out to be fantastic, not overcooked either and hit the spot.
There were two FAs taking care of the front cabin and they stayed mostly behind the curtain the whole time. I got up to use the bathroom and saw them eating the leftover meals from business class lol. The bathroom was clean and stocked with the same Molton Brown products.
We finally landed in Rome and since it was around midnight I think we were one of the last flights in… the walk to immigration was barren and empty as per this picture.
