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Recommended hotel:
Side Hotel and Pension
www.sidehotel.com or email at
info@sidehotel.com . A double room in the pension including a
great Turkish breakfast is 45 euros. In the hotel you have a TV,
that’s the only difference. Side also has a large suite suitable for
a family. Location in the Sultanahmet district is fantastic as it is
a short walk to all the sights especially the Topkapi Palace. The
Four Seasons Hotel is across the street. Reserve early via internet.
There are many small restaurants in the
surrounding side streets for dinner.
Suggested two day tour:
Day 1: Aya Sophya, Egyptian (spice)
Bazaar, waterfront walk and Hamdi Restaurant. Taxis ride to Oki
district for a walk.
Day 2: Topkapi Palace ( queue up
immediately for the Harem on entering , separate ticket, as it gets
busy later) ; Cisterns, Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar, shops behind the
Blue Mosque, Whirling Dervish show (either free in the
café/restaurant in the mosque arcade or an evening dinner show,
reserve in hotel).
Recommended book: Lonely Planet Turkey
To give you the flavor of Istanbul here is an
excerpt from a previous story I wrote about one of our trips to
Istanbul to visit the Istanbul Boat Show with a group of yachties
from Yacht Marine in Marmaris in 2004:
After an excellent Turkish breakfast
(hardboiled eggs, bread, cheese, olives, cucumber and tomato) at the
Side Pension my girlfriend and I headed by foot for the Egyptian
(Spice) Bazaar. Bill and her husband were attending the boat show.
Our walk took us past the Eye of Sophia museum, Topkapi Palace, etc
(Bill and I had visited all of these in Nov). Our walk was
immediately fruitful as the shops en route were a shopping paradise,
low prices and excellent quality! I had come to Istanbul with a list
of items to buy and knew the places to go for them.
The Egyptian Bazaar, only a 20 min walk from
the Side Pension, took us 2 hours due to excellent browsing and a
few purchases. I prefer the smaller Egyptian Bazaar to the Grand
Bazaar as it has a little of everything and the shop owners are less
aggressive. Walking the Grand Bazaar is like running a gauntlet of
hungry lions all eager to get you into their shops and spend your
money! The word “NO” is not in their vocabulary. After years of
practice shopping in similar places I have no trouble saying a
polite NO once and then ignoring all other attempts at conversation.
Back to the Egyptian Bazaar otherwise known as
the Spice Bazaar and as you enter this covered market you see the
shops with their mounds of vividly colored spices, herbs and teas.
Other shops are overflowing into the small passageway full of nuts,
Turkish delight, honeys and figs stuffed with walnuts. Dried
chilies, eggplant skins and red peppers hang from the storefronts.
There are also cheese shops and deli type shops with their salamis
hanging in front (no pork just beef and chicken). As we roamed
through we were treated to wonderful aromas and visual delights. In
addition there are also a few shops selling scarves, cushion covers
and handbags but the best are the linen shops overflowing with their
vividly colored Ottoman fabrics.
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