It was the last thing I expected as we came in to land at the world’s largest international airport. Fly into certain cities—like Denver, at 1,600m altitude, or Oslo, at 59 degrees north—and snow on the runway would be totally normal. But Istanbul is zero metres above sea level, and sits at roughly the same latitude as Barcelona. If there was snow on the ground here, I thought, what must it be like in our final destination: the mountains of the Anatolian interior? My fellow passengers were fretting about the cold as we peered out the portholes of the plane, but I found it hard not to feel excited.
Turkey is one of the planet’s most popular holiday destinations. It was the…
