Customer Reviews:
 Great Guide June 2, 2008
I am from Istanbul and I cal tell you this guide is fantastic. Before you visit my country Turkey read this guide. It is accurate and colorful.
 Great! August 25, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This Travel Guide is Awesome! It's very easy to read, great pictures and cool tips regarding your next trip To Istanbul.
It's a Must!
Excellent giude July 14, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I had never used this series of guidebooks before, so I did not know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised during my recent visit to Istanbul in June of 2007.
The main selling points of these DK guides are the superior maps and illustrations of tourist attractions. Major museums, mosques and palaces are shown in detail, with drawings and photos of the interior and exterior, as well as nicely illustrated historical tidbits. For doing the touristy things like visiting major attractions and taking pictures, this guide is great.
I am not sure how good this guide is when it comes to restaurants and nightlife. I did not explore that side of Istanbul as much, and what I saw did not impress me much.
Overall, I think I would have preferred a guide geared more towards active young people with a slightly cynical edge - this guide seemed to present everything as pretty and somewhat sterile. From what I saw, Istanbul definitely has an interesting culture that this guide did not fully capture.
Overall, good guidebook, and highly recommended. Read it ahead of time to know where the main sites and activities that interest you are located. Then do some more research online for good hotels to stay in - online reviews are more up to date.
Informative and easy to read May 14, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is one of the best guide books I have ever read! SO easy to leaf through it and find exactly what one is looking for. The maps are well drawn and easy to navigate, and the photograph make the whole experience complete. I loved most the chapter on foods and drinks to be tasted in Istanbul. Will be a great guide to take along on my trip there.
Best general purpose guide March 31, 2007
40 out of 40 found this review helpful
If you're only going to buy one guide to Istanbul, this is the one.
The principal reason is that Istanbul is a city of great architecture, which D-K's cut-away diagrams ideally showcase. You can quickly determine where you are within a building and which features you have not yet seen.
For us, the most enjoyable attraction in Istanbul was the ferry ride up the Bosphorus, which ends at a charming village near the Black Sea with excellent restaurants where you have lunch before returning. There are commercial tourist boats that make this trip, but we much preferred the public ferry that cost approx. $10 round-trip -- one of the great travel bargains of the world. The discussion about it in this guide is quite good.
Some things not covered in the book:
* When we asked the concierge at our hotel for the best place to change money, he said "The Grand Bazaar, no question." Indeed. In addition to a narrow spread between buy and sell, there is no commission. The local merchants all use the money-changers there, and according to the concierge, exchange rates for the entire country are set there.
* Among the best bargains in the Grand Bazaar are gold and silver, which are sold by weight with a reasonable mark-up, as opposed to the 400% markups commonly charged by American jewelers. Each jeweler has a gram scale where he weighs any given piece, and then prices it accordingly, based upon the price of gold that morning. The gold, by the way, appears to universally be 22 karat, worked in India. Because Indian workers are paid $15 per month, labor is not a material element in the price. A jeweler I spoke with priced a bracelet (pre-bargaining) at $650, when the price of the gold alone was $525. He was highly competent and straightforward in answering my questions, as were most of the merchants I dealt with. Similar savings seem to be available on diamond jewelry, although I did not consider myself competent to judge the quality of the stones and thus, did not buy anything.
* Rug merchants appear to be somewhat less reputable and certainly more insistent (one becomes tired of hearing their ubiquitous "hallo"). If they ask which hotel you're staying in or when you're leaving, simply respond "Why do you want to know?" One rug merchant, who is married to an American woman and is himself quite americanized told me that many of the merchants import rugs from China and then represent them as being from Turkey or Iran. As with diamonds, it pays to know what you're buying.
* Cab drivers are often dishonest. Know how much you should pay for a given trip and carry a lot of small bills and coins, so that you can pay exactly. Do not expect change. You may receive old lira (the Turkish lira was steeply devalued several years ago). Make sure the driver starts the meter when you get into the cab. The rate after midnight is 50% greater than before. Still, the (honest) rates are quite reasonable, especially since tips are not expected.
* The food is excellent, good ingredients and wonderful spices. Explore or ask your concierge. The best place we found, on the advice of our concierge, was the Magnaura Cafe Restaurant at Akbiyik No. 27 in Sultanhamet, tel: (0212)518 76 22, three blocks from the Haja Sofia.
* Be prepared to awaken at 6:00 am with the Call to Prayer, which is blasted from loudspeakers on the minarets of the mosques. It doesn't last long, but it will awaken you. I was not able to sleep through it, a problem that I rarely encounter.
* Three must-sees that we regret having missed: (1) the Chora Church, (2) the Palace Cistern, and (3) the old city walls.
All things considered, it's a great city.
For a less functional but more beautiful and sophisticated guide, try Knopf Guide: Istanbul (Knopf Guides Istanbul and Northwest Turkey)
Recommended reading: John Freely's Istanbul
Recommended viewing: Byzantium: The Lost Empire, Topkapi, Biblical Treasures of Turkey, the Supercities VHS tape Istanbul], and the Teaching Company course The World of Byzantium-The Great Courses (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)(6 VHS TAPES)
DVD to avoid: Globe Trekker: Turkey
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