Istanbul Tour Guide?

In 2007, we used a fabulous tour guide named Levent Somalaz. However, I can no longer find him on the Internet....maybe he retired?

 

If anyone can recommend a tour guide for Istanbul, I would really appreciate it!

We used http://www.adavegastravel.com . An excellent travel agency also its prices. You can do main monuments by yourself renting an audio guide but if you want to go to St Savior, the Jewish, Greek & Bulgarian quarter and know the real Istanbul you have to contact Ada Vegas. They took us to a mistic place, beautiful place where tourists do not go very commonly to smoke nargile, the place is amazing, they also took us to a Hammam and many other places. We had the guide for my 2 friends and me. A kind of private but with good price. Contact them and don´t miss Fener; Balat & Faith and its ottoman houses. Another day we went to Ortakoy and the asian side, also amazing. Love Istanbul!!!

Since I found this company on CC, I felt I had to show my appreciation. After sorting thru many websites and discarding the ones including rug demonstrations, I contacted Kagan at KSG tours & travel (also known as toursinistanbul.com). I was impressed by his detail of arrangements with no deposit necessary. That email correspondance resulted in our having the superb guide Yelda take us from our Izmir port call to Ephesus where we hung on her every description (and found out on return that she is a highly prized and sought after Epehsus guide). Then in Istanbul we used the company for transport from the port to our hotel and met our delightful and knowledgeable guide Lale with her driver who was always in the right spot. We were so thankful to see amazing Istanbul accompanied the effervesent Lale. She was priceless as we missed huge lines at sights and she knew the locations of the best restrooms along with lovely waterside lunch spots. There can be no higher recommendation.

In 2007, we used a fabulous tour guide named Levent Somalaz. However, I can no longer find him on the Internet....maybe he retired?

 

If anyone can recommend a tour guide for Istanbul, I would really appreciate it!

I have my current tour booked with him. It will be my third time with him. He's absolutely wonderful.

If you google him his website comes up and you can email him from there.

On a recent trip we used Daily Istanbul Tours (instanbulguides dot net) with our guide being Emine. As a professor of economics and history she was well qualified. We did a custom private tour and skipped some of the sites that were close to our hotel that we could easily do on our own. There was also a driver so we could get to Chora Church quickly and then several mosques and the Topkapi palace. It is true you can do all the sites on your own but I felt that on a first trip to Turkey it was very informative to have a guide. We gleaned so much more from the visit.

The next day we did the Two Continents tour with Culinary Backstreets. Our guide Senem was a delight along with all the delicious stops. This was a small group of 7 and we covered a lot of ground and gained a wonderful insight into the food and culture of Istanbul. It was a highlight of our 3 week trip!

We used KSG Tours a few weeks ago and were more than pleased with them. All of our correspondence with Kagan was answered promptly and clearly. No deposit required and when our ship cancelled our overnight and we had to make last minute changes Kagan assured us no problem. Our guide, Senem was amazing. She provided us a wealth of easily understood and interesting information while leading us in & out and all around the sights. We also arranged for transport from our ship to the airport. It was a little more expensive but again when we encountered problems, Kagan was there to meet us at the port. Our ship apparently experienced problems moving the crowd thru customs. We just texted back & forth to keep each other informed. When we saw the long ques for taxis, it made the extra cost more than worthwhile. Highly recommend them. You will find Rick Steve's mentions their services in his book.

RSL Tours guide and staff showed us an Istanbul/ Turkey that makes me want to go back for more. I felt so well taken cared of and learned so much about the beautiful city and all its history. Tour consultant Serhat, here is email: serhatozcelik17@gmail.com - info@dailytoursfromistanbul.com

I highly recommend saving money and renting the audio guides for the venues like Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and the Archaeological Museum.

We used Yasar Ozdemir (info@esendaltours.com) when we were there a couple of years ago. He was magnificent in giving us information and in helping us maximize what we saw.

Word of warning: if you are in Istanbul on Friday, the Blue Mosque is closed in the morning and the lines are incredibly long in the afternoon.

I don't know if you are set on using a guide or open to other options. We chose to do Istanbul on our own. With some pre-planning we found it very easy to navigate and were able to see everything we wanted to with plenty of time to spare.

We had two lovely tours Ephesus and Istanbul with him.We were on the Island Princess last year, but booked our tours seperately with him.He kept us away from the crowds and gave us excellent commentary almost about everything.He has great recommendations on Trip Advisor ( you can click the TA link below )

- Very special note : The food on the tour was 5 stars !! :) -

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g1182247-d3458828-Reviews-Ephesus_Tours_Best-Didim_Turkish_Aegean_Coast.html

Elena:)