Would happily come back! Gokhan was very helpful and quick to reply to any questions.
We landed very very late and he waited for us on arrival (around 2am!)
The flat is sparkling clean. Honestly, I can’t stress this enough. The number 1 criteria for me was cleanliness and this place delivered.
We’re a small family of 2 adults and 2 children including a toddler and everything we needed was in the flat from cutlery, utensils to bedding and toiletries. There’s also a water cooler that dispenses both hot (boiling so please be careful as I found this out the hard way!) to cold drinking water. There’s a large fridge which was big enough for our weekly shop. Cooker, washing machine etc. It was a home from home.
Flat is on 16th floor but there are 2 lifts. Views are spectacular.
There’s also a watchman that’s always in the lobby. To get in you need a key card and all of this adds to the security of the building. I didn’t want to stay in some of the other areas as I was concerned about safety (first time in the country). Also some of the more touristy places have a lot of hills which would have made walking with a toddler difficult so this flat was ideal.
There’s a mall (Google Venezia Mall Istanbul) which is literally downstairs. It’s also an outlet so you can find Nike, Reebok and Adidas. The prices weren’t that different to those in the UK though! There’s also a supermarket which is where we did our weekly shop.
To get to Sultanahmet there’s a metro about 5 minutes away. You’ll take that to Topkapi which is the last stop on the T4 line. You’ll exit and walk 2 minutes to the T1 line and catch that to Sultanahmet. I believe the Grand Bizar is a couple of stops before that. The whole journey takes around 50 minutes and that’s more than doable with a toddler in a sling.
The travel system is fantastic and very similar to the London Underground. I’d recommend getting an Istabulkart which means each journey is 2.6 TL per person. We used 1 card for us as you just tap for each person (unlike an Oyster card). You can use a variety of transportation methods on the one card (ferry, metro etc)
We also took a taxi there but journey time was around the same (around noon). This cost around 70-95TL depending on traffic
I’d highly recommend a trip to Kadikoy. For this we got off at Eminönü on the T1 line and took a 20/30 minute ferry ride again using the Istanbulkart. We ate at Ciya Sofia which honestly served the best food We had!
Taxi to the flat was 200TL at 2am which my husband haggled down from 250. This was from the first guy that approached us and in hindsight we overpaid. It wasn’t even a yellow taxi! On the way to the airport we were charged 125TL and this was on the yellow taxi WITH a meter
Final note, Turkish people LOVE babies! I was offered a seat on the metro a couple of times and people wanted to stop and take a picture with my baby!
Would be more than happy to come back and really enjoyed the stay at the flat!