The difference between seeing Istanbul and spending time in Istanbul is not measured in landmarks. It comes down to what time you get up and where you decide to sit down. A few habits move you out of sightseeing mode fairly quickly.<\/p>\n
In the early morning the city belongs to the people who live in it: bakeries open, pavements get washed, stools appear outside tea houses. The hour between seven and eight is the most honest part of the day here.<\/p>\n
A Turkish breakfast is not about speed. A table of small plates, two or three glasses of tea and a long conversation \u2014 that is how a weekend morning passes in Be\u015fikta\u015f, Moda or Kuzguncuk. Don’t schedule anything for the next two hours.<\/p>\n
Tour boats are for visitors; commuter ferries are for everyone else. The Emin\u00f6n\u00fc\u2013Kad\u0131k\u00f6y line costs the same as a metro ride, and tea is sold on deck in small glasses.<\/p>\n
The Emin\u00f6n\u00fc pier is ten minutes on foot from our hotel, so this route can begin straight after breakfast.<\/p>\n
An esnaf lokantas\u0131<\/em> is a workers’ canteen: pots in the window, ready-cooked dishes, busy at one o’clock. You point at whatever looks best. It is cheap, quick and almost always good.<\/p>\n Tea in Istanbul is less a drink than a reason to stay. In a tea garden you can hold a table for three hours with a single glass and nobody will hurry you. G\u00fclhane Park and the shore of the Golden Horn are the classic choices.<\/p>\n Street markets run on fixed weekdays and show a district as it actually is \u2014 prices, faces, the noise of the sellers. Even without buying anything, it is the fastest way to feel the rhythm of a place.<\/p>\n The city opens up for people who linger. One neighbourhood walked slowly leaves more behind than five pins dropped on a map.<\/p>\n Our hotel stands in Sirkeci, within walking distance of both the old city and the ferry pier. See what is nearby on our Explore<\/a> page, or compare our rooms<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The difference between seeing Istanbul and spending time in Istanbul is not measured in landmarks. It comes down to what time you get up and where you decide to sit down. A few habits move you out of sightseeing mode fairly quickly. Start early, but not for the queue In the early morning the city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12433"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14334,"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12433\/revisions\/14334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelsultania.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sit down for tea<\/h2>\n
Visit a neighbourhood market<\/h2>\n
But the real trick is slowing down<\/h2>\n