Istanbul in the Spring – Part 1 – 2024

After our time in Budapest, we flew to Istanbul, Turkey and spent 6 fantastic days. I have a lot of favourite cities and this is definitely near the top. We had booked a small boutique hotel called Royan Suites, only 7 rooms. We had the only room on the ground floor probably cause we’re old, (there was no elevator) It’s funny because I have tried searching for their website but only their large, expensive parent hotel comes up. It was down and around the corner, maybe this hotel has changed ownership. Above photo is me and the hotel manager, Jem. Our room below with a little patio.

  • Our room
  • Our little patio

Our hotel was in the old part of the city, we were maybe 15 minute walk to the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and other well known tourist attractions.

The people running the hotel were fantastic, Jem was the manager and Aisha did all the cleaning and made breakfasts, which was included. Chetin was the night manager and was on from 7 – 7. Our first breakfast there we thought, Wow, who is all this food for? Aisha kept bringing out one plate after another, it was insane the amount of food plus she would cook eggs as well. After the first morning, we asked her if she could tone it down lol But I will say, everything was delicious.

  • View of our hotel from the street
  • View from the front patio
  • Patio out front, we spent a lot of time sitting there when we weren’t roaming the city
  • Clint, Jem and Aisha on our last morning there
  • Dodo the cat lived there and the door to our room is just to the left of him

This city loves their cats, most cats are homeless but almost everyone would leave water and food bowls out for the cats and some people built little cat homes that any cat could use. It was quite fascinating to see.

  • Stray cats and some houses people have put out for them
  • You never know what you might see in a shopping cart

I loved this city and every day we were gone from right after breakfast until quite late in the afternoon, or early evening. Next post, I’ll take you around the city !

14 thoughts on “Istanbul in the Spring – Part 1 – 2024”

      2. Yes! That’s true but I’m not sure that the dogs were taken care of very well in that country. But these cats are spoiled rotten but they still deserve a proper home I think.

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      3. It’s nice people at least feed them and give them water. My friend in New York lives near a woods and gets the same Mama feral cat with new kittens every year – she tries to trap some and take them to a feral cat organization where they are socialized and can be sold (sometimes).

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      5. Yes, it is sad … and my friend says the Mama cat brings them back every litter as she knows they have food, water and shelter boxes for Winter. My friend agonizes over them when they get scared if a raccoon comes up on her deck and they won’t use the shelter boxes in the middle of Winter – she lives near Rochester, NY where they get tons of snow.

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    1. Oops Cheesecake comment is for the next post. Sorry trying to get caught up. All those cats is crazy! There must be so much history with these buildings. All that food, wow! I bet it was fun trying a little of everything.

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