{"id":25069,"date":"2010-11-09T08:35:54","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T06:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=25069"},"modified":"2014-01-05T21:48:18","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T19:48:18","slug":"new-guides-to-istanbul-offer-insider-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/11\/09\/new-guides-to-istanbul-offer-insider-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"New Guides to Istanbul Offer Insider Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to a handful of new books by locals in the know, visitors to Istanbul can now delve even deeper into this city\u2019s delights.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The American writer and teacher Ann Marie Mershon teamed up with a locally renowned guide, Edda Renker Weissenbacher, a polyglot Turk known for her fascinating strolls through undiscovered areas, to produce \u201cIstanbul\u2019s Bazaar Quarter: Backstreet Walking Tours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their four chosen itineraries take readers down cobbled streets to narrow stairways, in the zone that stretches from Aksaray through the Grand Bazaar down to the Egyptian spice market.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could fly through any of the walks in an hour to 90 minutes,\u2019\u2019 Ms. Mershon said, \u201cbut to really enjoy them, you should allow about four hours for each.\u201d<\/p>\n

To find a lunch spot to break up those walks, try one of the frills-free places profiled in \u201cIstanbul Eats: Exploring the Culinary Backstreets,\u201d written by two Americans who have lived in Istanbul for years and who appreciate a well-grilled kofte.<\/p>\n

The authors, Yigal Schleifer, an occasional contributor to this blog and the Times Travel section, and Ansel Mullins, a real estate consultant, have tracked down dozens of often-overlooked restaurants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many great, amazing places in this city and the food culture is so rich and so deeply intertwined with the larger culture here,\u201d Mr. Schleifer said over a serving of grilled meatballs at Kofteci Huseyin on a side street in the Beyoglu neighborhood. \u201cBut we kept seeing the same old places being advertised and promoted.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

So they started a blog, Istanbul Eats, and the blog led to the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody comes to Istanbul expecting one type of thing: they\u2019re really shocked to find there\u2019s something other than the kebab,\u201d Mr. Mullins said, wolfing down a generous portion of piyaz, a white bean and onion salad.<\/p>\n

To help put that history into a contemporary context, Pat Yale, a London-born writer, and Saffet Emre Tonguc, a Turkish writer and private tour guide for clients like Oprah Winfrey, have collaborated on \u201cIstanbul: The Ultimate Guide.\u201d<\/p>\n

At more than 600 pages, their encyclopedic effort takes readers to sites absent from most itineraries -\u2013 and guidebooks \u2014 like Yenikoy on the Bosporus and Caddebostan on the Asian side.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course like everyone we wanted to cover Topkapi Palace and Hagia Sophia,\u201d Ms. Yale wrote in an e-mail. \u201cBut Saffet and I wanted to show that there is also much that is fascinating about the more modern city \u2014 the Abud Efendi mansion that was used in the smash-hit Turkish soap opera Gumus, which is credited with kickstarting the Arab world\u2019s recent love affair with the city.\u201d (\u201cIstanbul: The Ultimate Guide\u201d will soon be available on Amazon.com and is sold in major bookstores in Istanbul.)<\/p>\n

via New Guides to Istanbul Offer Insider Tips – NYTimes.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to a handful of new books by locals in the know, visitors to Istanbul can now delve even deeper into this city\u2019s delights. The American writer and teacher Ann Marie Mershon teamed up with a locally renowned guide, Edda Renker Weissenbacher, a polyglot Turk known for her fascinating strolls through undiscovered areas, to produce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":25073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1094],"tags":[102],"class_list":["post-25069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tourism","tag-istanbul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}