Istanbul Tips
Istanbul is a fantastic city with its history, architectures and gastronomy. Istanbul is a city at the middle of Asia and Europe and most importantly neighbor of Greece and middle eastern countries at the same time. It means Turkey surrended by extremely opposite and transitive cultures. So The city offers middle east and western culture in terms of where you hangout. In this article I will try to warn and inform you about Istanbul daily life conditions to enhance your experience, during your Istanbul visit. But this advices good for people who like to hangout like a local. Otherwise if you come to Istanbul with a tour, the control of the visit will be in charge of tour guide. But if you are discovering the city by your self check it out the essential Istanbul tips below.
Stay in a nice area
Choosing a appropriate hotel is the starting point of your Istanbul visit. The location you choose is highly dependent on your trip motivations. If you are a history and museum person, you can choose old city locations like Sultan Ahmet. But if you want to involve local people life at least little bit, old city is not good for you. Because of everything set for tourist needs in old city, even-tough its beauty the area provides limited experience. Of course you should definitely visit old town couple of times but, you can stay in different areas still located in the heart of the city. In this sense, Karaköy, Pera and especilally Galata provides multi motivation to its visitors like history, authenticity, gastronomy and cool bars. And most importantly those areas are combining modern and traditional culture in their unique aura.
Hang out Locally
Istanbul is a spread out city with couple of centers like Taksim, Eminönü, Mecidyeköy, Levent and Kadıköy. Also the costal strip of Bosphorus is a very long strip for both Europa an Asia sides. So it’s very hard to discover completely the city in couple of days. But you can see main essential building Hagia Sofia and Yere Batan Sarnıcı and museums like Topkapı Museum in same area called Sultanahmet. But if you want to mixed up to local life you need to visit some neighborhoods like Bebek, Cihangir, Kadıköy, Nişantaşı…vs. For-instants Nişantaşı is a semi touristic area like its main street Abdi İpekçi Caddesi nice but a classic shopping one. When you are hang outing in Nişantaşı if you go Topağacı and Teşvikiye neighborhoods you may also breathe local atmosphere. Also While Taksim, İstiklal avenue is a very interesting street, you can have you coffee after your walk in a uniq neighborhood Cihangir.
Choose right restaurants
Gastronomy is one of the most import thing in your foreign country trips. The best way of learning e culture is tasting its food and understand their table culture. The most important tip for especially western tourists about Turkish gastronomy, most good restaurants don’t serve alcohol. Because of some reasons it’s very hard to find taste, alcohol and moderate price together in a Istanbul restaurant. Especially old city areas like Sultanahmet and Eminönü provides very tasty restaurants without alcohol. So you can definitely eat something in Fatih “Kadınlar Çarşısı” and Eminönü “Tarihi Hocapaşa Lokantaları” especially in lunch time. But if you want to have a beer in you lunch time, old town alcohol serving restaurants are expensive and mostly serve bad food. So my recommendation is try non-alcohol places in lunch time. But For dinner time follow local foot steps like, Karaköy Lokantası, Mürver, Aheste Pera, Asmalı Cavit. And try to not go side by side restaurants like Galata Bridge and Nevizade.
Be cautious of traffic
Even Istanbul is a hectic city, we can’t describe it as dangerous one. but I can’t say it for city’s traffic situation. Because of Istanbul is a huge population city, roads are not enough to handle traffic. And also the role of city in terms of economy, make life really chaotic. Especially motor-bikes very import for business while they distribute all kind of commercial papers business to business. So with over expectation of their rapid, they are always in a rush and drive their bike without rules. So for instants in one way road, there is always a motorcycle may come form the wrong side. So local people in Istanbulalways check both sides when they are crossing the road. Also Turkish drivers are not used to let pedestrians cross the road even in crosswalk. So you should always very careful in traffic areas while hangout in Istanbul.
Be aware of shoe shine boy trick
Some creative guys found this fraudulent method several years ago for cheating mostly local people. As soon as local people aware of their sneaky system, their start to target tourists. Nowadays bunch of potential criminal people looking for this method as a carrier point. Anyway the fraudulent methodworks like this. A shoe shine boy passes trough you while you are walking in the street. Then the shoe brusher falls his brush supposed mistakenly right in front of you. Then you warn the guy about the fact as a right person. Then the shoe painter offer you a free shoe cleaning to show his appreciation against your appropriate behavior. Regardless of what kind of shoe you have, he start to clean your shoes and tell about his bad faith. Generally they are in a miserable situation and need urgent cash for a very sick family member. After the self dramatization you felt like you should give some money to fix the his problem. So when you see a fallen brush in Istanbul, you can definitely just keep walking as nothing happened.
