DISCLAIMER: not a timeshare question, but in the spirit of
@ValHam who recently posted questions about Cairo and Luxor, I would be appreciative of info from some of you middle east travelers. Planning a 2+ week trip beginning October 1.
We did visit Turkey for few days in 2019. A visit that non of us wants to go back to.
We stayed at the Istanbul Marriott Hotel Asia which is a very nice hotel. They gave us an Executive Suite with lounge access on the 21st floor if I remember correctly with a nice view of the Basfor Strait. Hotel is in a nice area away from downtown. In front of it there is a Starbucks and a nice Carrefour supermarket. You can buy lots of food items from there which we did.
We rented a car and they gave us a brand new 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid. I was really happy with it. It was nice to be able to move around the city but we had hard time finding parking sports anywhere. There was a 1-2 hour wait time to enter public parking lots which are available in downtown Istanbul.
That was the nice part. Now to the ugly one.
Majority of people we met are super unfriendly and I feel they wanted always to deceive us. The same experience I got from 2 friends that visited there too. There was a parking spot on the street that I found as a parked car just left so I parked in it. I was not sure if that was OK so I asked a person in a store just in front of the spot if It was OK to park and he said no. I went to another store, which I think is owned by Syrian people, and they said it is fine which it was.
As I was walking away from the car, I found Tourist police on the street so I figured I ask them but no English what so ever. So they got me someone to translate but was never able to get an answer or they did not want to give me one.
Anyway we moved on to St. Sophia church after going through the Turkish bazar. After the visit, I went to get the car to pick up my family. On the way back after picking the car, I got stuck behind a box truck that kept on stopping in front of every shop to drop merchandise. After the first 2 stops, I started using the horn to get out but suddenly there were tons of young men around the car unhappy that I did so. I asked if he can go in a side street so we all can pass then they can come back to continue delivery. No way and they were also very aggressive and wanted to open the car and maybe attack me. See the picture below. I drove in tons of countries but never had something like this happen to me.
While I was behind the truck, one of the young kids (12 YO) that pushes a garbage dolly scratched the car and I could not do a thing about it. Thankfully enterprise did not charge me for it.
We did not like the food there in general as it has tons of spices which made it uneatable for us. Also the pastry (like baklava) is super sweet. We ended buying some basic items form the supermarket and eating at the hotel. Cheese that Marriott had for breakfast had a wired taste.
We were so unhappy after the first day that we called the airline to see if we can fly the next day to Berlin but it did not work out. The few days we stayed in Germany after Turkey made for it.
If I ever got to this area of the world, It will be Greece for sure. You will be very happy there. One of our favorite destinations.
Stuck in car.
View from hotel.