Istanbul

Be sure to rent From Russia with Love before you go.

Oh yeah, avoid sitting in the front in taxis. It's like dodgem cars, except this is for real.

Anyway, there was a brilliant mall with an icerink at the bottom. Go there and you'll forget you're not in the UK.

I intend to at least *try* learning some phrases before we go, but this is kind of short notice.

tissp, you'll do fine with English in the city center, although the usual pleases and thank yous in Turkish will earn you points. Your hotel location sounds good; most of the old city sights are close together. Sounds like a lovely trip.

Beyoglu is worth a visit, esp. Nisantasi, but it's much more like a standard European city over on that side of the Horn (boutiques, nightlife), so if you're short on time, deprioritize. Mr. X OTM in regard in language, esp. in Sultanahmet; in Beyoglu, not so much.

And if a Turkish man tries to randomly befriend you in the Sultanahmet, he is probably going to try to sell you a carpet. The state-run carpet store (near all the historical stuff) is a good way to go if you must make a floor-covering purchase and don't wanna feel like you're negotiating to buy a used car or something.

Although there's a good chance you'll be cheerfully pestered while in Sultanahmet by carpet touts and tour guides, you won't be the target of the kind of aggressive or hostile hassling that you might find in, say, Cairo. A mellow time awaits you.

Fresh seafood and lokum!!!!!

The Topkapi is an intermittently fabulous palace with a wonderful museum. There is a surrounding park with terrific views from a small cafe at one end, plus one of the world's nastiest little zoos, which I desperately wish I had never seen - though it did have a fortune-telling bunny outside it when we were there. Not far from it there is a small but lovely aquarium in a cave.

The covered market also has to be seen. Ramble at random, I would say - but don't buy anything. Overpriced crap. You can ramble in most areas and see lovely buildings pretty often. I can't remember the name, but there is a big mosque up on top of a hill that is tremendous.

The only bit I'd recommend on the Asian side (though it's well worth crossing over) is a pretty park with some gorgeous little pavillions. Can't recall the name. Also, there are reasonably-priced boat trips up the river. They will want to deposit you at a horrible rococco villa out of town for sightseeing, and I recommend skipping that.

As for where you are located, so much is concentrated around the horn that it is worth being there - but note that taxis are very cheap.

I really liked Topkapi, too, but I remember it being rather smaller than imagined, and there seemed to be an inordinate amount of tableware on display--like, rooms and rooms of dishes and bowls.

I liked the seemingly endless succession of (relatively) tiny rooms at Topkapi--an interesting contrast to the aircraft-carrier approach of your later European palace designers. Don't miss the castration pavilion!

I am going! I have been exchanging emails with my hotel and I am buying the plane tickets tomorrow!

10 days over Christmas.

Tell me where to buy carpets, and anatolian prog, and elektrosazzes, and where I can get the best coffee and overpriced Turkish tat and all those coloured glowing lamps like magical jellyfish. But mainly where to get Selda records.

Or just make TMBG jokes if you'd rather.

Anyone?

I guess ILX has become completely US-centric these days. Sigh. Prove me wrong.

I've spent about 10 days in Istanbul (and a little more than that elsewhere in Turkey) but I couldn't tell you anything about where to buy much of anything. Guys working for carpet stores verbally assault you everywhere, so we were deeply turned off by them and left without a carpet. I was there with an infant and so we spent a lot of time invited into people's homes to show off our blue-eyed child, and being given trinkets to attach to her clothing to ward off the evil eye. We found ourselves in the covered bazaar a lot, because it's fabulously atmospheric, and visited lots of mosques. The area around Taksim Square is probably where you'll find pop music stores, as that seems to be the most Western part of the city. Otherwise it can be a quite conservative place.

Yeah, just before Euler posted I was about to say the same about carpets. You are offered them wherever you go. I also ended up jaded and carpet-less.

It's too long ago to offer anything constructive, except that I never once saw anything like a second-hand LP market. (heck, if it wasn't that I was working in a nightclub, I'd have never even seen a record of any description!)

The huge market is good for newly made turkish violins and other musical instruments.

I wonder if anyone went to that mall with the ice-rink? (it's not exactly a must-see, as I say it's just like an English mall)

It would take a lot to turn me off carpets. Maybe I should take my mum - I swear she could out-carpet-trade any man in Istanbul. Seriously.

So the giant central market is overpriced? I just love the pictures of it. I don't really want to go wandering off anywhere non-central as a foolish western woman alone.

We met several Australian women traveling alone in Istanbul, and they seemed to having a great time, for what that's worth. I don't think the grand bazaar is particularly overpriced, but we bought nothing there save lokum so I don't know for sure. The bazaar is wonderful, and it's definitely central. And there are buses going everywhere if you want to go out of the center without walking; the city walls are pretty tremendous but are a little ways out. And a stroll/bus ride/boat ride along the Bosporus is essential.

OK, that's reassuring - I was wondering what it would be like to be a single woman in a Muslim country, but Turkey seems quite the most modernised and secular state so I thought it would be OK. (My mum is still convinced that I will come back with three Turkish husbands who will all beat me every day, but she's kind of like that.)

These hints are all great. My hotel is right between the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque so it says most things of historical/architectural interest are within walking distance.

Hmm, let me think.. Of the 8 girls I went out there with, one had one already,two got husbands there, and one had a flinge, so hey: It could happen!

srsly tho: Yeah, it's like you say, modern city, all that.

Other areas, I dunno: Our troupe always had heavy but implicit protection, no-one would dare do anthing because they knew who we were and there would be 'visits' if anything untoward happened, let's put it that way.

Kate, will ask my lovely Turkish friend where she'd go. She's told me that you can tell which men are fundie assholes based on moustaches.

I have no intention of having flings with anyone. I find the whole idea of holiday flings kind of icky.

Unless I get free elektrosaz in the deal, then I might consider it. ha ha.

xpost ha ha, what does a fundie mustache look like? Don't like mustaches without beards so it's a moot point.

ANYWAY we are not talking about Turkish men YOU ALL SOUND LIKE MY MOTHER - I want to know where to get Erkin Koray records and paisley things.

This is not about pulling! Friend is from Istanbul and she said that if the 'tache goes past the end of the mouth and points down, the guy's a fundie. It's relevant in transport situations - for her - because as a secular agnostic Muslim she catches a 'tude from men who are like her uncle, whose wife is not allowed to have her own keys. They ask her if she's a good Muslim girl while taking her home. She also tells me that Turks refer to their chattering class as 'the enlightened people' and most speak good French or English.

What about paisley mustaches? What do they say about the political-religious alignment of the wearer?

http://www.bumpershine.com/wp-images/posts/mustache_contest.jpg

Wow, erm, actually this is apparently quite a serious topic:

http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_39836

LOL can you not ask Erol to back this one up? Friend in question has communist/intelligentsia parents and they came here as refugees. Her folks went back and now live by the sea, in the country somewhere.

im going to istanbul in a month--looking for recommendations for food, day trips, nice places to walk around.

What I wrote last year still seems right to me re. Istanbul. Walking around the Grand Bazaar is epic & we just did it again & again during our trip.

We had a great time in Bursa, which is daytrippable from Istanbul (just across the Sea of Marmara): the Green Mosque & Green Tomb are pretty amazing, & we just had a chill time there (we had the best Iskender kebap of our trip in Bursa).

The tasting menu at Mikla, whilst not cheap, remains one of the greatest dining experiences of my life. Wonderful inventive modern Turkish food, great view of the city and a good atmosphere.

i havent been to istanbul but there was a really rad article written by elif batuman abt turkish food in the new yorker a little while ago - made me want to go there so bad. you can see the abstract here - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/19/100419fa_fact_batuman

i was there a few months ago and friggin loved the place!
one mid-range place we ate at was the Rumeli Cafe restaurant. great selection of traditional food (the menu even tells you what region) and the service was amazing. it's not far from the Hagia Sophia, and obv is aimed at tourists - but the place is great.

i havent been to istanbul but there was a really rad article written by elif batuman abt turkish food in the new yorker a little while ago - made me want to go there so bad. you can see the abstract here - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/19/100419fa_fact_batuman

― just sayin, Friday, August 20, 2010 8:29 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes this place is definitely on the list

and thanks for the recommendations guys!

so, i did not find istanbul as cool as i hoped :-/

but, the food was awwwwesome

first part of that post is :( second part is :) and also tell me more

i dont know how much there is to say--i think me and istanbul just did not "get along"--the city wasnt as beautiful to me as i had been led to believe it would be--the old town and big sites were as crowded and hot and cluttered with shit as the worst bits of rome and paris (in september)... i also was staying in sultanahmet near the blue mosque in a not particularly pretty bit, so to get anywhere that was relaxing/beautiful/fun required a lot of hill climbing and crowded tram-taking. but also a lot of stuff went wrong--mosques were under renovation and closed; i lost my credit card. so its mostly my fault/my hangups, etc.

but there was a lot of beauty and beautiful moments amidst all the irritation. hagia sophia really was breathtaking; the mosques i was able to get in (i.e. not suleimaniye, selim) were gorgeous; arnavutkoy and ortakoy on the north bit and balat and fener on the south bit were the istanbul i was "expecting"--fun and friendly and quite pretty, crowded with buildings from every era of the ottoman empire (and in some cases the byzantine).

and the food was just

i mean

i dont know. tbh the two meals i had at ciya were about middle of the pack as they went--though certain individual ciya dishes, in particular the soup and the bits of salad bar i had, but most especially this DESSERT, this like pastry-filled-with-pistachios-and-served-with-butter thing--were wild. best food i think was lamb ribs at this grill house in beyoglu. also loved a little fish place at the foot of galata tower--crazy deep fried fish hot pocket. um, and the sheep intestine sandwiches you can get off the street for 3TL are NUTS, so good. i dont think i ate a single bad meal (though i had a couple "meh" ones). great meatball place in balat with a sweetheart of a guy who wanted to talk basketball, but only knew the words "nba" and "sacramento." baked potatoes loaded with pickled veggies and yogurt watching the bosphorus in ortakoy next to their huge baroque mosque.

this website was extremely helpful: istanbuleats.com. basically all the places i ate came from there or from a couple chowhound threads.

tbrr the food highlight was the baklava from gulloglu karakoy. i ate a portion a day, basically. unbelievably good.

daaamn yeah i live in london at the moment so theres no reason for me not to get over there. bookmarking istanbuleats.com

if you go, esp. if youre going for the food, i highly recommend you stay in beyoglu, north of the golden horn--way more good restaurants, nightlife options, etc. than sultanahmet, and the public transportation is cheap and reliable from there

also prettier, though inna 18th/19th-century continental european way and not an 'ottoman' or 'byzantine' way

haha already i have been home and i have been telling people how to vacation in istanbul--im trying to send people on the trip i WISH i had taken instead of the trip i did take

lol hate that

yeah I had pretty much the same experience as Max the two first times I went (weekends) - somehow everything seemed too hectic, too much hassle, etc. but it all clicked this sumemr when I went for a week to visit a friend - I did not need to go to Sultanahmet and could just wander in the quieter parts of beyoglu (loved the small antique shop area) and in the Asia side (I was staying right next to Ciya)

The mister has been stranded in Istanbul overnight due to missed flight - anyone recommend any hotels? He's getting a plane at 8am so preferably near the airport, although people on fb seem to think it's easy to get to and from the city... But then, he wasn't planning to stay and I dunno how easy it is to get around when you only speak English and you don't even have a phrase book...

Sorted now. *phew*

phew!

I go to istanbul

staying in beyoglu at max on fire's rec; stoked for the food madness

ha i didnt remember being so down on the city when i first got back!

my memory of it now is much better!

cozen i just sent an email of recs to a friend whos going in september, drop me a line if you want it

yeah that'd be much appreesh'd. my email addy is dwhowie at gm41l dot com

sent

im going there for my honeymoon! pls fwd on recs??

staying in beyoglu at max on fire's rec

Not terribly Turkish but The House on Istiklal is pretty good for lunch. The 360 Istanbul restaurant (club) next door is a bit faux-swank but has a nice 360 degree view.

Go to Pamuk's Museum of Innocence.

Get a raki in Çiçek Pasajı.

here i'll just paste the email here so all of ilx can benefit from my useless advice

WHERE TO STAY

We stayed in a perfectly nice and very cheap hotel a few blocks away from the Hagia Sofia in Sultanhamet -- the old town/tourist district -- the name of which I can dig up for you if you're interested. BUT I would actually really recommend staying on the north side of the Golden Horn, ideally in Galata. (This is something I really wish we'd done!) Basically, all or most of the good nighttime stuff -- bars and restaurants -- is just north of the Golden Horn in Beyoglu (which is charming in a 18th/19th century way instead of a 14th/15th century way) while all or most of the touristy stuff (well, Haigia Sofia, Blue Mosque and the museums) are in Sultanhamet. Istanbul has good daytime public transportation but it stops or slows pretty early (I want to say 10?), so if you want to go out and eat and drink most nights (and, believe me, you do), you're a lot better off having your hotel be near the good stuff.

The best bar we went to was actually a rooftop bar on top of this place -- http://www.londrahotel.net/ -- great view (though they were constructing a shopping center right there so the view might suck now!) and well-located. The hotel itself seemed ritzy-ish, but that might be still be cheap enough; generally Istanbul is really cheap. Even if you don't stay there, I really highly recommend the bar -- nice atmosphere and a wonderful soundtrack of ca.-2004 indie rock hits.

WHERE TO EAT

I highly, highly recommend this website, run by a couple English-speaking ex-pats for finding restaurants: http://istanbuleats.com/. We were almost never let down by its recommendations! Specifically, though:

Furreyya Galata Balikcisi -- fantastic, cheap, homey fish place right at the foot of Galata tower. Great for dinner and then drinks at the square under the tower. (Or vice versa.)
Zubeyir Ocakbasi -- really great classic grilled-meats place just off the main drag of Istiklal. Good prices, too.
Antiochia -- slightly more upscale but still quite good dinner with cuisine from outside of Istanbul -- I can't remember where, though. Somewhere else in Turkey.
Güllüoğlu -- unquestionably the best baklava I have ever had in my entire life. Just unbelievable.
Kofteci Arnavut -- this was the best meatball shop we stopped at -- very "authentic" -- incredibly kind hosts. Our waiter really wanted to talk about the NBA. It's kind of out-of-the-way but if you're out walking through Balat, which is one of the best neighborhoods for a walk, it's perfect. (Also nearby is the Bulgarian Orthodox church, which is made entirely of cast iron and was shipped down the Golden Horn in parts.)
Ciya -- this is the place that had a big NYer article a few years back. It's very good but didn't blow my mind or change my life or anything! The dessert and soups were the best -- those were close to mind-blowing, TBH.

I also recommend trying lahmacun (sort of a pita pizza) and kokoreç (sheep intestine sandwich) wherever you can find them -- I'm sure some purveyors are better than others, but they're basically just street foods. I thought the kokorec was so good when I had it, though apparently there's not a lot of quality control and it's possible to bite down on pig shit.

And kumpir, another street food, which is just a baked potato loaded with veggies and meat and shit. If you take the bus up to Ortakoy, where there's a beautiful little mosque, you can grab a kumpir from one of the many stands in the neighborhood.

WHAT TO SEE

So, obviously, the basics: Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Saray. I really highly recommend getting out to see the Chora Church -- it's walkable from Sultanhamet if you want to get a good sense of the city; you go through Fatih and pass by some working-class neighborhoods, and some very religious neighborhoods. People are generally very nice or just ignore you (IME at least).

All the "big" mosques are worth seeing -- basically anything in Sultanhamet or Fatih. The ones that are less touristy, sometimes you have to have someone let you in, and they expect a small donation. (This only happened to us once, though, IIRC. On the Asian side.)

The Grand Bazaar is... overrated? Worth seeing but now it's basically leather shop, jewelry shop, rug shop, leather shop, jewelry shop, rug shop. The market neighborhood nearby is interesting for people-watching and color.

We took a day trip out to Buyukada, one of the Princes' Islands. It's very pretty! But only if you have the time, I think.

There is some kind of ferry you can take up the Bosphorus called something hilarious like "Grand Nostalgia Tour" -- basically takes you straight from Beyoglu up to the mouth of the Black Sea. It's great! You can check out all the crumbling late-Ottoman riverside summer homes (and a few medieval ruins) from the water and then get a really fantastic view at the end.

I think I mentioned this but Ortakoy and Arnavutkoy are nice charming little neighborhoods, though you have to take a bus to get up there.

I really loved seeing Yildiz Palace -- crazy luxurious/decadent 19th-century palace in the city's public park. This was my girlfriend's favorite thing on the trip, I think. The park itself is gorgeous too.

FINALLY

I can't recommend this book enough, if you are a walking-around history-buff kind of tourist: http://www.amazon.com/Strolling-Through-Istanbul-Classic-Paperbacks/dp/1848851545. It's actually kind of a pain to tote around and read but you can still skim it, and read it before or after as you walk through some of the neighborhoods, or do some kind of put-it-on-your-iPhone thing, I guess. But it's like having a very erudite and knowledgeable British academic walk you around Istanbul.

Let me know if you have any questions!

thx dude!

oh I never posted after my visit; istanbul was really great. crazy to watch the unfolding mayhem on streets that were so placid a few months ago

the food was incredible; especially balik ekmek on the banks of the bosphorus & bal kaymak in this one little kurdish place (van kahvalti evi) in cihangir

definitely grab the istanbul eats iOS app if you're going

ty 2 ilx user max also, his tips were great, esp the little fish place at the bottom of galata tower (fürreya)

i still dream about the gulloglu baklava

srs

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3744/9185188151_4374b317c3_c.jpg

thinkin about doing this

did this, loved it.

also thinking about doing this

original idea was to do some travelling about turkey and go to see what remains of antioch as well, but apparently though antykya's nice there's v little antioch left in it.

Furreyya Galata Balikcisi -- fantastic, cheap, homey fish place right at the foot of Galata tower. Great for dinner and then drinks at the square under the tower. (Or vice versa.)

i had made a note of this place in my istanbul travel doc months ago and ate there tonight. really lovely spot on a cold rainy evening here.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm Istanbul y/n next year

sterling leading me to ditch UK plans

CAD/max/others -- is this place...safe these days? anybody know? i'm flying to taipei in late december and due to flight logistics/pricing it's cheaper for me to fly out a couple of days earlier than my girlfriend and her family, so i was looking at places to spend a couple of days in the meantime. istanbul is the big hub between here and most of asia -- i had a layover there a few years ago, the airport SUCKS iirc -- and i'd love to explore it but...i'm just worried about the whole shares-a-border-with-iraq-and-syria thing

we were there back in april and i have no idea if the situation has changed since then but i never felt anything less than completely safe in istanbul. you can get a taxi from ataturk to the old part of the city and it will prob take 30 mins or so.

i think they place a huge premium on keeping the touristy areas safe, but even when we stumbled into a more residential area i had no concerns.