Areas and venues preferred to stay at Istanbul

We prefer the Taksim Sqyare area rather than Sultanhamet, the over touristed part of the city.

Thank you Suki….when were you there last and do you know anywhere reasonable and safe to stay?
John and Donna in Port Alberni BC

On the other hand, I really liked staying in Sultanahmet, much more "atmosphere." Most of the sights - all of the main ones - are on the European side and either walking distance or near the trams. If you stay on the Asian side, you have quite a commute and traffic can be awful.

I usually stay in Beyazit (i.e.-- Grand Bazaar area). It's slightly less touristy than Sultanahmet and food is more affordable, but it's still close to the streetcar and major sites. My favorite place to stay there is Hotel Niles.

We stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Taksim which was recommended by friends from Istanbul.
There were many international hotels nearby. We were disappointed in their lack of service. The only restaurant name their concierge would give us was the hotel’s own dining room ! We actually don’t recommend the hotel, poor service.
We also stayed in Sultanhamet one night at the Neorion Hotel which offered lovely service and had a roof top deck. But we still preferred Taksim to Sultanhamet.

Parts of the Old City (south of the Golden Horn), including much of the area around Sirkeci Station, are...intense. Narrow streets, crowded sidewalks, etc. I don't have a problem with that sort of environment, but I kept thinking about how some other people wouldn't like it at all. It feels very foreign.

What worked for me, since I was in Istanbul for 24 nights, was to split my time, spending the first ten nights in the Sirkeci area, seeing all the key Old City sights, a bunch of additional mosques, and some other sights on that side of the Golden Horn. I also took boat trips up the Bosphorus and to Buyukada in the Princes' Islands. When I returned to Istanbul after six or seven nights in Bursa, I spent my final fourteen nights in a hotel near the Pera Museum, 15 minutes or so from Taksim Square. From there I saw sights on the north side of the Golden Horn and in Asian Istanbul. That area is likely to feel more comfortable to westerners, but it's not particularly convenient for most of the city's key sights, since you have to start most sightseeing jaunts by crossing the Golden Horn. Istanbul has a lot of public-transportation options, but transferring is often required. I'd warn people about the possibility of excessive back-and-forth commuting if they didn't have much time in the city and wanted to see a lot.

A possible compromise for some folks might be the area just east of the Blue Mosque. Some of the RS tours stay there, at the Acra Hotel, I think. I happened to walk through the area one day and saw that the many hotels, restaurants and shops looked as if they catered, at least partially, to foreign tourists. It won't feel like an "authentic" neighborhood (I doubt if locals go over there to shop), but it's attractive and relatively convenient. The nearest tram stop seems to be Sultanahmet on Divan Yolu; it's near the Palace of Antiochos.

I didn't stay in the sort of hotel I would expect to offer fabulous service, so I can't comment on that, but breakfasts were decent if not up to Scandinavian standards, and I had no problems with cleanliness. I think the rate of inflation in Turkey must make it very hard to run a business, especially a business like a hotel catering to foreign visitors with relatively high expectations.

Thank you from western Canada!