Union Church of Istanbul

15 - 20 minutss walk to grand bazar which is good

I spent 6 nights in the Recital and overall I enjoyed it. I was on the top floor and had a small private terrace. The room was spacious, I had booked a deluxe single but the room had a single bed and a double bed. The bed was reasonable comfortable and the pillows were excellent. Despite being on the top floor, I was unfortunately next to the stair access to the roof terrace. This is advertised as closed 11pm to 7am for the comfort of those on the 5th floor but this is not the case. It was ok initially as the first couple of nights it was raining, but a large tour group of loud (is there any other kind?) Americans arrived in the hotel and behaved like they owned the place. I was up late generally but some nights it was almost 1am before the last people came down and they obviously weren’t quiet. The door to the terrace creaked a lot and would bang loudly if not closed gently. Breakfast was ok. It was quite samey day to day, and they didn’t have any bread for toast after day 4 which I found strange. Hot options were limited and of wildly varying quality. Nothing was labelled so there was an element of trial and error with the more unusual dishes. They have a gym supposedly in the basement which I visited on day 1 and not again. It was in poor condition. One gym mat that must have been at least a decade old. Staff were pleasant. Everywhere was immaculately clean. Despite this though, I would be unlikely to stay again if I ended up returning to Istanbul.

Nice, friendly hotel. Especially Mert at the reception desk is a big plus.