Istanbul

Istanbul sightseeing. WHEN WE WERE IN ISTANBUL: We spent five days in Istanbul just before Easter 2009 and we stayed at the Orient Express Hotel in the Sirkeci area of old Istanbul. (Another separate review) Istanbul is the only city built on two continents and split by the sea. The Bosporus is the section of water which unites the two continents and joins the Sea of Marmara to the Black sea. FIRST IMPRESSIONS: The first thing that struck me as we drove from the Airport to the hotel (apart from the speed and interesting lane changes) was the number of spring flowers along the roadsides. There was a mass of colour ...  Read the complete review

Everything people say about this city is true- romantic , busy , bustling, ancient , fascinating. It is also a young city as , its population , currently estimated at anywhere between 15 and 20 million, depending on who you ask, is more than 60 % below the age of 35. This lends the city a vibrancy that grabs you by the throat . Getting there in summer is not cheap but there are still some bargains to be had if you don't mind which airport you go from or dont mind a stop over. Swiss air often is cheap but you pay for everything extra on board the flight and will change in Zurich. There is much to do there and even if you think you aren't interested in Roman or ...  Read the complete review

One of the world's biggest cities, Istanbul is almost too diverse and too historic to sum up in one review. One could spend weeks in this fascinating metropolis and still barely scratch the surface. The city is at once bewildering, enchanting and exciting and exploring it can sometimes feel like hard work but your efforts will be rewarded many times over. I can only give a very general overview of Istanbul here, it's unrealistic to think that one could give any more in a couple of thousand words but at the end I'll give some suggestions for reading and viewing material that I think will complement and extend what I want to say about the city. Istanbul has a ...  Read the complete review

Despite visiting Istanbul last in Summer 2007, I am very keen to add my voice to the positive reviews as I absolutely loved my time there and am desperate to return. While Inter-railing, my partner and I arrived in Istanbul on a 2 day, 2 night train journey from Budapest... now that bit I don't recommend! After my partner had his card swallowed in the station cash point, we stepped out into the heat to be confronted by hoards of milling people, haggling diners at kebab stands and the sight of a very large hill in the direction we were pointed. Shouldering our backpacks and pushing initial misgivings to one side, we set off to our Hostel, the Antique Hostel in the middle ...  Read the complete review

While living in Northern-Cyprus I saw myself confronted with the situation, that whenever I wanted to leave the island to visit my family back home I couldn't do so with a direct flight, but had to endure a stop-over in Turkey. As I had visited Istanbul before my relocation and loved the city, I always made sure that this stop-over was not only going to happen there, but would also last a minimum of 3 days - rather then the usual 30 minutes pit-stop it would take to reach the UK, or anything between 1-8 hours, as in my case, to reach Germany. With my husband being Turkish-Cypriot and having friends in Istanbul we didn't have to bother with ...  Read the complete review