My First Impressions of Istanbul – Turkey

Wow! What a fantastic city!

Istanbul is massive, studded with impressive historic mosques, hefty stone castles, elaborate Turkish palaces, European-era shopping streets, historic Turkish bathhouses still in use, ancient towers, underground cisterns, churches & cathedrals, world-class museums, Byzantine wall ruins and many other historic structures.

The sprawling mega-city lines both sides of the grand Bosporus Strait, which connects the Black Sea at its north end to the Sea of Marmara at the southern end (the Marmara then connects to the Mediterranean).

Mostly Istanbul is an extremely hilly place, filled with steep, narrow cobble-stone roads pointing in all directions and jam-packed with tall, wall-to-wall historic buildings. Though some areas of the city are flatter and accommodate wider paved roads.

The streets offer a never-ending variety of restaurants, cafes, tea shops, Turkish dessert shops, boutiques, mini-markets, galleries, designer clothing, bargain shops, souvenirs, Turkish carpet stores…Anything you can think to buy can be found in these streets.

A City on the Sea

Although the wide & deep Bosporus appears to be a river, it’s actually a salt-water passage, a natural straight between the seas.

The Bosporus is an important & busy international waterway, constantly bustling with boats and ships of all types & sizes: massive cargo ships accompanied by cute red tugboats, a huge fleet of large ferries carting people up & down & across the vast channel, fishing boats, cruise ships and the occasional yacht.

I find it easy to forget I’m actually at the sea here in Istanbul, but hundreds of seagulls keep reminding me with their distinctive calls.

An Easy, Relaxed & Comfortable City

Istanbul does not have a frantic, tense energy like some cities (NYC, Tokyo and Bangkok come to mind). Nor does it feel seedy, dark or menacing like some other massive cities (parts of Barcelona, NYC, Jakarta come to mind).

Instead, rather amazingly considering Istanbul’s vast size and steep narrow roads, the city somehow manages to feel calm, relaxed, at ease and utterly un-intimidating. It’s also incredibly quiet for such a massive city, as well as very safe.

Istanbul is also extremely easy to get around and, despite it’s vast size, most of the main attractions are surprisingly close to one another. Many are jam-packed together in a couple key neighborhoods.

For these reasons and more, I find Istanbul to be a very, very easy and comfortable city to be in and to explore. Some of this ease and comfort is also undoubtedly due to the wonderful private room I’m renting in an apartment here.

Indoor Heating & a Fabulous Apartment

Everything about my apartment makes me feel relaxed, warm and comfortable. First of all, it is actually warm. Very warm.

Rather to my amazement, the Turks use central heating! Everything is warm inside! Not only my apartment, but every restaurant, cafe, store, bus, tram and ferry.

As I re-learned late last year in Bulgaria, indoor heating makes a huge, huge difference to my experience of a place in cold seasons. In fact, indoor heating makes the complete different between feeling comfortable & relaxed or tense, stressed and constantly chilly.

My wonderful room in Istanbul has high ceilings, original wood floors in an apartment with a small shared kitchen and a very hot shower. I’m way up on the fourth floor of a historic building, with two large windows in my room admitting lots of light and the regular cries of seagulls and doves. I feel like I’m up in the sky.

My apartment is so well located that I can reach several major site areas with a 5-15 minute walk. It’s also just 10 minutes downhill to the shores of the Bosporus or 10 minutes uphill to the city’s main upscale pedestrian shopping street, Istiklal Avenue.

I can walk to the nearest bridge in 15 minutes then cross the Bosporus on foot in less than 10 minutes, and land myself in another major historic district.

For places further away, I only have to walk downhill 10 minutes to catch a tram or bus, else chug uphill 10 minutes to the nearest metro station, and I’m soon on my way to further points.

Fantastic Public Transportation System

Istanbul’s public transportation system also makes the city super easy to get around. It’s actually quite fabulous. There are buses, metro lines (subways), trams, historic trams, funiculars, a tunnel funicular, ferries and boats.

They’re all interconnected, run frequently and on time. They’re also all very clean, modern, safe, well-marked and extremely user-friendly. Amazingly, transportation cards work for every mode of transportation in the city, with each ride costing just 3.50 Turkish lira / $0.55 US.

City of Cats

Anyone who knows me knows I love cats. And Istanbul must be the cat-lovers capital of the world!

I am astounded at how well locals take care of their thousands of street cats. Not only do people leave out bowls of food, water and milk, but they’ve built cat houses all over the city! I kid you not.

Cat houses sit along sidewalks, on porches, in parks, outside shops. I even discovered a 4-story cat apartment building in one big park!

And any city filled with cats is a wonderful city for me! Every day while exploring the city, no matter where I go, I come across lovely healthy friendly cats to pet. They always brighten up my day even more.

There’s so much to see and do!

Istanbul is filled with tons of beautiful historic buildings, museums and other cultural attractions. When I was researching Istanbul online before my trip, I actually became tired and somewhat overwhelmed writing down all the attractions & making exploration plans! That must have been a first for me. Lol

I’m glad I did the research because I have a good understanding of the city’s lay-out, major areas of importance and my top interests. But I’m also finding little surprises every day as I wander the streets and neighborhoods. This makes the city even more engaging.

Quiet and Un-crowded Streets

Thus far, while wandering all over the city, I’ve found Istanbul to be relaxed, calm and not overly crowded. Maybe I’m just managing to avoid the crowds because of my early-bird schedule and interests.

I have run across mega-crowds twice thus far while wandering the streets. One time was in late evening after dark on the famed Istiklal pedestrian shopping street. THAT was crowded! I was only there because my apartment building – and entire block – was without electricity all night. I figured I may as well go out and do something than sit inside a dark, suddenly unheated apartment.

The second time was a late afternoon in a maze of narrow shopping streets near the historic Spice Market. I think I discovered where locals go bargain hunting!! I weaved! I weaved my way out of there as fast as I could.

So perhaps Istanbul is crowded for some people’s experiences. Perhaps I’m just spending most of my time in less populated locations. And I’m also here during the very low tourist season here as well.

Restaurants Galore

Istanbul is also a very easy & inexpensive city in which to find food. Much like the SE Asian countries of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, I only have to walk one or two blocks, anywhere, to find at least one decent, inexpensive place to eat. Generally, there are many spots to choose from.

This city also has my favorite style of restaurant – cafeteria style – whereby a huge selection of tasty, cooked meals is on display in big glass cases. I just have to go inside, point to what I want, wait two seconds for my plate, pay, sit down and eat.

This type of restaurant is equally prominent in SE Asia. Last year I was also very happy to find these restaurants in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. 

Besides all the delicious restaurants, there are amazing Turkish dessert cafes, tea shops, Turkish coffee stalls,fresh-squeezed juice stalls, shops full of nuts & dried fruits and the ubiquitous kebab shops. 

In cities like this, I save a lot of time and energy by eating out. I don’t have to go grocery shopping, cook, clean up. And I don’t have to carry around heavy lunches with me when I go out exploring. 

Cheap Public Toilets

Much to my delight (and relief, no pun intended) public toilets are very easy to find in Istanbul. Most mosques have a free public toilet, which they actually announce with large red-lettered signs.

Besides those, regularly-place public toilets are located everywhere. They usually cost only 1 Turkish lira / $0.15 US, a price I find quite reasonable. A few toilets in tourist areas cost 2 lira, but that’s just $0.30 US, which is also fine.

These toilets are always very clean and many have toilet paper as well.

Then, of course, restaurants, cafes, bars, shopping malls and even grocery stores also have toilets.

This vast public toilet system also helps make my explorations of Istanbul very easy.

Summary

Istanbul is a wonderful, amazing and intriguing city. It’s easily one of my favorite cities in the world already.

Istanbul is massive, filled with an unimaginable number of amazing things to see and do. It has a relaxed, calm energy to it. The transportation system is vast, frequent and timely.

Many major attractions are close to each other and located in a few key areas, making it easy to explore. Food is diverse, inexpensive and easy to find everywhere. Public toilets are also cheap and in abundance.

And last but certainly not least, Istanbul’s thousands of well-cared-for street cats add an extra-special charm to the city. 

It’s all these wonderful little things that make Istanbul an exceedingly easy & comfortable city for me. 

I highly recommend visiting this amazing city! Stay as long as you can because even one month isn’t enough time to explore everything.

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