Blue Guide Istanbul (4th ed) (Paperback)

~ John Freely (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Huge, busy, full of atmosphere, and with a tremendously rich architectural heritage, Istanbul is one of the world's most beautiful cities. All of Istanbul's monuments, including the Haghia Sophia, Topkapi Sarayi, and the Covered Bazaar, are covered in a series of carefully planned walks. Away from the center, the guide describes walks along the Byzantine land walls and the historic Bosphorus and excursions to the delightful Princes' Isles. 25 illustrations, 30 maps and plans, 16-page color street atlas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 4th edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393317463
• ISBN-13: 978-0393317466
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,187,538 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #88 in

  Books > Travel > Asia > Turkey > Istanbul

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but not sufficient as your only guidebook., May 16, 1999

By A Customer

This guidebook is great at what it does, but is otherwise limited.

It's a really excellent reference to the history, churches, and monuments of Istanbul, often going into exhaustive detail such as what day (On April 23, 1542 at 12 noon, etc.) something happened. (It must be said, however, that Freely gets a bit enthusiastic about some very minor monuments and mosques which do not seem to really deserve it.)

It has great information on all the major and minor mosques and other monuments around Istanbul, including maps and diagrams. In this sense, I found it very useful on my trip.

As a general guidebook, however, it falls short. This is not the author's interest, and lists of hotels, restaurants and bars are thrown in almost as an afterthought. There isn't any discussion of the character of different neighborhoods, nor is there much information on where to go, what to see, etc. after the museums and monuments are closed for the evening.

So I would recommend that people get this fine book as a reference to the history and architecture, museums, etc. and get another guidebook as well.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great help for the first timer, November 29, 1998

By A Customer

My wife and I just returned from our trip to Istanbul. The Blue Guide was like having our own guide. Often, when reading portions to her, some other English speaking folks wandered up to and asked "say that again." On our cruise up the Bosphorus, it made the villages, the castles, palaces some alive. This is my second Blue Guide (the first was on Vienna)purchase and they will become a part of our travelling "necessities."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An indispensable guide to the world's most fascinating city, November 3, 1998

By A Customer

Modern-day Istanbul -- crowded, dirty and noisy, but with a dazzling beauty all its own -- is the sum of twenty-seven centuries of history, and no guidebook captures the city in all its glory better than this one. It's almost a street-by-street history of the city, indispensable for the independent-minded traveler who really wants to know the place. Wandering around with this book in hand (or even getting lost, which I've done more than once) is pure joy. My own copy of the previous edition is showing the strains of four separate trips to Istanbul -- it's flecked with bits of pistachio shells, the cover is stained from having too many glasses of raki set on it, and several pages have buckled from splashes on the Bosphorus ferries -- but I'll never get rid of it.

John Freely's erudition is amazing, but never pretentious. His histories in this book of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires are the best short accounts of those civilizations I've encountered anywhere. He also emphasizes historical sites that other guidebooks seem to overlook, such as the Kariye Camii mosaics, the Yerebatan Saray (underground cistern) and SS. Sergius and Bacchus Church, all of which are absolute gems little visited by tourists. I can't imagine the amount of research that went into the writing of this book.

At last count I owned twenty-four of the Blue Guides. All are excellent, but this is my favorite. There is simply no better guide to Istanbul. I hope that Freely's "Istanbul: The Imperial City," which I have just purchased, is as good.