Foodie tours

Depending on which RS tour you're doing, there may be an option to arrange a foodie tour with SRM Travel (the company that provides the guides for the tours). If offered it will be listed in your tour materials. It's usually one day before the official tour start date. I thought it was an excellent value and great experience to go to the Asia side of the city. I believe the Best of Istanbul tour essentially includes a food tour, but others can weigh in on that.

As for arriving early, for the Best of Turkey tour I arrived 3 days ahead. Day 1 (arrival day) was to get from airport to hotel and rest after 19 hours of travel, Day 2 was to do the extra things in Istanbul not covered by the tour (including a Turkish bath), Day 3 was the foodie tour, and Day 4 (tour start day) I had the morning to transfer hotels and sightsee a bit before the 1 p.m. tour meeting time. If I could go back in time, I would have added one more day - so much to see and do in Istanbul.

Culinary Backstreets is fantastic. We took their evening tour in Istanbul last month and loved it!

Another vote for extra days in Istanbul, if you can add them. If you are on the Turkey tour, not the Istanbul tour, it will just give you a brief introduction to Istanbul. And definitely find food tours - they include a lot of interesting information in addition to the food. I thought the SRM tour was excellent, and the Culinary Backstreets tours I have taken were all outstanding.

Thanks for sharing your experience, CL. I'm starting to plan our RS Turkey tour in October and we'll likely try to do what you did. What was your Pre-Tour hotel and which Turkish bath did you visit?

Thanks for sharing your experience, CL. I'm starting to plan our RS
Turkey tour in October and we'll likely try to do what you did. What
was your Pre-Tour hotel and which Turkish bath did you visit?

Hi Judy, I stayed at Agora Guesthouse in Sultanahmet pre-tour, as my tour hotel was in Karakoy (Galata's hotel) and I wanted to experience staying in the old part of town. It was pretty amazing sitting on the rooftop of the hotel and listening to the call to prayer from both Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Depending on your tour hotel location you might want to do the reverse - there are many, many hotel choices in Istanbul so it may just be up to your taste and budget.

I went to Hurrem Sultan Hamam which is right by the Hagia Sophia. By all accounts it's probably one of the most expensive baths in Istanbul, but it was very close to my hotel and a luxurious gift to myself to celebrate my retirement from work. It was definitely an experience! If you search the forum there are many posts about baths, take a look to see if others look good to you. I also went to the hamam in Antalya which was an equally great, if not more local, experience for about half the cost.

There are a lot of good resources in the forum including some very detailed posts from CWSocial that are a little dated but very useful still. Feel free to PM me if you have more specific questions.