Will be in Turkey (Istanbul) the next few days. Any travel/sightseeing advice?

[Jigs]

That article was a nice read. It is always good to have allies that support you unconditionally.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

That article was a nice read. It is always good to have allies that support you unconditionally.

We support u coz ur frm turkiye and ur turk.

 

[black_magic pk]

As promised, here's part of the view from my room:

And I took this at the Grand Bazar. Notice the flag bang in the center. And please also note the flags which are absent

interesting observation i thought why pakistan flag didnt make it to the top

mashallah all the top countries are muslim countries

 

[black_magic pk]

does anybody know, except the living expences, how mucht he travel cost me, if i leave UK, and through spain, france, germany, italy, belgium NED my final journey ends up in turkey istanbul, how much the euro trip cost me??????, through european vis a.k.a shangen visa can i visit turkey bcoz its not in EU??

 

[Solomon2]

TL, see if you can get a peek at Ataturk's desk. Museum historians value a subject's tools more than anything else.

 

[BelligerentPacifist]

TechLahore,

Turkish Girls are really the most beautiful girls in the world But i'm sorry that you are married

I used to think the same way until I went to Türkyë

 

[TrMhMt]

interesting observation i thought why pakistan flag didnt make it to the top

mashallah all the top countries are muslim countries

Your flag placed in the middle coz (in my opinion) Turks would say that you placed in the middle of our hearts !! As you know all of muslim countries placed different side from you for us !! I mean you are unique .....

 

[A1Kaid]

I guess our flag got pulled off after Flotilla...lol joke

 

[TechLahore]

Ok, here's an interesting article I just saw in the Economist. This is the cover story this week, and it was pretty cool to read it sitting in a very eclectic bookshop just off Istiklal cad!

Net-net, Turkey is on the move for sure, the "China of Europe" as this article suggests and for it to pursue an independent foreign policy which no longer aligns with the US or Europe is quite natural. According to the Economist, resisting or opposing Turkey would be foolish.

As a side note, I did not know Turkey was the world's largest exporter of cement! That's pretty impressive.

 

[black_magic pk]

Your flag placed in the middle coz (in my opinion) Turks would say that you placed in the middle of our hearts !! As you know all of muslim countries placed different side from you for us !! I mean you are unique .....

thank you for making us special,hope these feelings are carried in every pakistani and every turkish heart , turkey and turks are very unique too, thts y two unique nations share unique relations unparallelled in the world..

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

sound economic policies (after many past crises), young & educated workforce, dynamic private sector & industry, strong leadership and strategic geographic location are all --among other things --to its advantage

 

[lisa jane]

Turkey is no doubt a country with rich history and lots of things to see. I travel back and forth from England to Turkey work related and unfortunately haven't had the time to enjoy it but I'm considering going there on a vacation. I have only been to Istanbul so far and it's extremely interesting city. And speaking of tips -the only thing I don't like about it is how often I have problems with bookings. It's not a nice experience to be searching for a place in the middle of the night therefore now I always call to confirm my reservation. It might be pricey so I use a call service which provides cheap calls to Turkey (I use 'briing' if that's of any help) Its fast, cheap and easy to use. If you'd like to get to know the people better I'd recommend trying couch surfing - staying with locals is always so much fun and an interesting experience. Enjoy your stay!
And be careful for the ‘nazar boncuk’ or ‘evil eye'
Lisa

 

[TechLahore]

TL, see if you can get a peek at Ataturk's desk. Museum historians value a subject's tools more than anything else.

Indeed. I saw Ataturk's desk, the bed where he lay in his last few moments on earth as well as his wheelchair. The desk was small and modest and Ataturk used one of the smaller bedrooms at the Dolmabahçe Palace. His bed was draped with the Turkish flag and when we visited, a wreath lay on it. It was extremely touching. I said a Fateha for him standing in his room. Quite an experience.

The following is not a picture I took, because they don't allow you to take pictures inside the Dolmabahçe, but am posting it from the web for the benefit of the rest of my friends here:

We took more than 2,000 photographs in Turkey, so now I'm having a whale of a time organizing them, cropping, fixing etc. I'll post a few more. I really, really enjoyed the military museum, but frankly, all of Istanbul was delightful.