Download Strolling Through Istanbul The Classic Guide to the City Hilary SumnerBoyd John Freely 9781838600020 Books

Product details Paperback 512 pages Publisher Tauris Parke; Reprint edition (June 18, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1838600027

Strolling Through Istanbul The Classic Guide to the City Hilary SumnerBoyd John Freely 9781838600020 Books Reviews

• I bought the last edition of this book 15 years ago, when I was an expat teacher living in Istanbul. Some of my happiest memories of that time are of wandering through the back alleys of the city with this book, early on Saturday mornings before the bustle started. While there are plenty of badly-researched travel guides that give you (an often erroneous) overview, and lots of academic histories of the city big enough stop a truck, this book occupies a unique niche. This is a walking historical tour guide, written by two of the most enthusiastic and literate historians of the city, who actually have lived there most of their lives. Istanbul is not a "pretty" city, it is a chaotic mash-up of old and new, and a quick bus tour of the place may well leave you unmoved. But take a bit of time to learn the histories, the layers to this city, and it becomes an utterly magical, fascinating place. This book helps you do that.
  
  I bought the new edition in anticipation of a trip this summer and revisiting some of those old walks, that the city has changed dramatically in the last decade, so a re-write is very welcome. This is not a book for a whirlwind two-day bus tour of the city. Like all worthwhile things, the book requires a bit of time and commitment (read at least parts of it before you go), a willingness to get off the beaten track and visit some out-of-the-way parts of the city, to risk getting lost now and again in ancient, unsigned streets. But, this is Istanbul, Constantinople, Byzantium - really, if you aren't willing to do that, why are you going at all?
• This book is not for the idle traveler with a limited interest in Constantinople and/or Istanbul. It is a detailed summary of virtually every site of historical, architectural, or artistic interest in the city. There are no glossy, colorful pages in this book, and the maps included give only a vague idea of locations. Luckily, newer downloadable maps with GPS tracking give the location of about 95% of the sites described. Most of the data in this book is also covered in Freely's "Blue Guide", and his "The Companion Guide to Istanbul". A must have for those interested in the remains of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires.
• The best guide to Istanbul I know of. Immensely detailed walking tours.
  
  I've been to Istanbul several times and had no idea what I was looking at even though I used the DK Eyewitness Guide To Istanbul, which is also a wonderful travel guide. This book is so enjoyable that you can read it without even being in Istanbul.
  
  If you're traveling to Istanbul you should bring this with you and if you have the space also bring the DK Eyewitness guide which has copious illustrations and cutaway drawings.
  
  I think that to do the entire itinerary would take you several days due to the interesting details described and explained, but you could just pick out the major landmarks and skip the rest if you don't have the time.
  
  Buy this book!
• We visited Istanbul for the first time last Summer. Our hotel was located about 3 short blocks from the Blue Mosque, a perfect spot from which to launch a walking adventure. Our journey was enhanced by notes from good friends who had visited the same area 5 or 6 times. Their suggestions brought us to places we would have never found on our own. Strolling Through Istanbul serves the same purpose, only with much more detail and skillfully drawn maps to assist in finding locations in the maze that characterizes the entire City. Finding one unique, out of the way cultural/historic site not frequented by tourist hordes is well worth the price of this exceptional guide book.
• It is an excellent guide for walking through the city, finding where all the relevant buildings and places are and learning their history.
• Was great to use in Istanbul - didn't have restaurants or hotels, but wonderful details about sites to see. I spent a very long time at Kariye Camii,(formerly a church and a mosque and now a museum) and with the aid of this book which explained each mosaic in the correct order, I was able to follow the remarkable stories shown in these mosaics. Without this book, I wouldn't have begun to understand this amazing museum.
• This book is priceless for historically-minded tourists who want to carry with them a detailed explanation of what they are looking at. It covers all the major sites in old Constantinople, and has information on many other historical sites as well. We carried it on our recent (April 2011) trip, and were well pleased with it. Minor drawbacks include somewhat murky maps -- it's a good idea to get a good map, available from various tourist info kiosks -- and some information that apparently wasn't updated from the first edition. But overall this book made our time in Istanbul much better. However, this book is not a practical book like Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, etc. -- you'll need one of those also to help you figure out how to get around, where to stay, and so on.
• This is a wonderful, old-fashioned guide book from the days when people traveled to be educated. You have to read it before you leave on vacation because there isn't time to read a chapter when you get there. They're long. Great maps of palaces and ruins. A nice way to figure out what you can get to in one day or two days as sites are along a self-walking tour.