Originally Posted by flamingpanties (Post 19945845)

Where's the best place to do shopping in IST aside from the Grand Bazaar? I want to pick up Turkish specialties such as towels, a mosaic lantern, etc. Cheapskates, weigh in.

I heard nice things about the Tuesday street market in Kadikoy on the Asian side. The prices are supposed to be better, as it's where the Turks themselves shop. I also want an excuse to venture into Asia, as I have never set food onto the continent.

Originally Posted by tsastor (Post 19949264)

Isn't that an excuse in itself? ;)
I'd like to know the answer to your question as well. The small groceries we visited didn't even have any price tags for their merchandise.

Originally Posted by jaybert (Post 19953740)

can anyone provide some personal restaurant recommendations? Anything from street food to michelin starred restaurants. We will be in Istanbul for ~4days/nights in the middle of April.

Originally Posted by TheCount2 (Post 19954874)

I recommend the three restaurants at which we ate. We ate lunch in the Sultanhamet at Khorsani, which has both indoor and outdoor tables. The food was quite good, and it serves kebabs as well as other dishes, We were served a fabulous huge loaf of bread with our mezzes. It has a menu in English. It is next to the restaurant Adonin, which is recommended in the DK guide, and we ate there as well. I recommend them both.

We also ate on the other side of the Golden Horn at Zeyrekhane, which has a spectacular view high on a hill overlooking the city and the Golden Horn. Our guide took us there for a wonderful lunch. It has traditional Turkish food, and you will wind up ordering twice as much as you can eat as the portions are huge.

Originally Posted by flyhen (Post 19954993)

Khorsani seems like a great choice. Considered that we will only be there for 1 day. We are looking for reasonable Turkish food. I love kebabs. Do you have the address of that place? Or is there any other place you'd recommend given my situation (within the Sultanhamet area of course)

Originally Posted by TheCount2 (Post 19955033)

The first two are listed in Tripadvisor and are with a block from the Sultanahmet tram stop, not sure about the third.

Originally Posted by flyhen (Post 19955177)

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserR...-Istanbul.html

is this the one?

Originally Posted by unknown786 (Post 19955360)

Going to start planning a trip in June/July soon - going with family (including 1 yr old daughter) - if anyone has any recommended hotels would be interested in hearing more!

Originally Posted by slocouple (Post 19955387)

Do you have the Hyatt credit card? GH Istanbul is Category 4.

Originally Posted by FlyingDoctorwu (Post 19491650)

I've heard the taxis from the airport are fine. As are typically the ones from hotels. However taxis in tourist areas run a couple of scams. I know because I feel victim to them unfortunately.

1. Meter fixing. It's isn't as common as it used to be apparently when they used to be a night and a day rate but it still happens. Be wary of taxis with the meter placed in front of the gear shift. One scam is that the driver will position his hand so it's very difficult to see and follow the rate. In addition they will distract you by pointing out something and do something to the meter. And voila your ride that should cost 25 lira now cots 55... Newer taxis have the meter integrated into the mirro which makes this scam more difficult.

2. Swapping of bills these guys must be magicians or something. During a taxi ride MrsFDW handed me a 50 lira bill. I went to pay the fare and he did some sort of slight of hand and said this is only 5. I was a bit confused with the money so I thought maybe I had only given him a 5. Nope turns out I got scammed. From then I followed each bill into the drivers hand and would say here's twenty etc. in addition I made sure I had small bills to pay the taxi fares.

Not a scam but the driver will say something like Istanbul traffic really bad. Fare will be 30 lira. Get out if you can. Most fares are no more than 20. This was a problem at the chora church because all the taxis there were running the same story.

Yeah I've traveled a lot but these guys here are some of the slimiest cab drivers I've ever experienced. Some of them might not want to drive you up to the hotel for fear that you'll enlist their help. I found at Istanbul feels very safe but that a few bad apples can leave a sour taste.

Just what I've encountered I know most of the 20000 taxi drivers here are honest but its important to watch out.

In other advice do not order museum tickets online from the muze.gov.tr site. Apparently the barcode they use is very finicky and we had no luck getting any of the tickets to work. Furthermore no one at the site seems empowered to fix the problem. So instead of saving time by using e-ticketing it actually cost us time and money. One thing that just came out for foreigners in Sept is the muze card option which is 72 lira for 72 hours of access. That is probably something worth looking into.

So the way I figure, Istanbul owes me at least 175 lira between the taxi scams and the failed e tickets.

FDW

Originally Posted by Antonio8069 (Post 19985855)

..plan to spend as much time as possible in the Turkish Airways lounge at Ataturk. The place is incredible!!