Our trip to Istanbul was a last-minute decision of sorts, leaving me less than a week to find a hotel and actually secure rooms for our travel dates. For some reason, I had difficulty getting a room for five nights, so I ended up booking our last two nights at Ambassador Hotel (which I shall review in a separate post) and the first three nights at Hali Hotel.
From my experience with hotels in Europe, a quick browse through Hali Hotel’s website gave me a hint that it would be just like any other standard 3-star European hotel: small rooms but clean bathrooms, with dated but well-kept furniture. Nevertheless its location was a huge pull, i.e. Sultanahmet, just a short walk away from Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya), and very near a tram stop.
But that’s not what made me book the hotel. What really made me fall for it — hook, line, and sinker — was this banner on their website:
Knowing how there’s not always truth in advertising, I felt that I needed some third-party confirmation of its claim about the view. So I did a quick Google search and found a blog post that mentioned something about how one needs to go up Galata Tower, in case “you lucked out of a stay in the Hali Hotel and it’s (sic) terrace view of The Hagia Sophia, The Blue Mosque and The Bosporus River”.
I didn’t have time to look for any further proof supporting Hali Hotel’s claim about the view, so with a wish and a prayer, I sent out an email confirmation to secure our room at €80 per night including buffet breakfast for two, with a request for a room with a view of the Blue Mosque. The hotel reverted with a booking reference number and a reminder that the €80 rate is for cash terms only.
I also requested for airport pickup from the hotel for an added €20. I was well aware that there may be cheaper ways of getting to the hotel but given our 6 a.m. arrival and the amount of luggage that we were bringing in (countless samples and company brochures), an airport pickup was the most convenient choice for us.
The morning of our arrival at Atatürk airport, I experienced a brief moment of worry when we didn’t find the guy who was supposed to be waiting for us at the terminal. This was easily solved with a quick phone call to the hotel. “You go to Information Counter. You wait 5 minutes. My friend will go there.” The ‘friend’ eventually found us, helped us with our luggage, and drove us through early morning Istanbul traffic in a Hyundai rental car, one of many, many Hyundai cars in Istanbul’s roads [NB: Hyundai has local production in Turkey].
In less than half an hour, we found ourselves in front of Hali Hotel in a quiet cobblestoned one-way street…
…and inside its dimly lit lobby, whose lighting is actually much dimmer than in my photo below.
There was a single man behind the desk. He checked us in very quickly and asked us for the payment in cash, for all three nights in advance. Not once did he smile from the moment we entered the hotel until the moment he gave us our keys. But I must give credit to Hali Hotel for allowing us to go into our room much earlier than the usual 12 noon check-in time without any additional charges. What bliss it was to sink into cool, clean sheets after a ten-hour flight!
But let’s cut to the chase and deal with the most nagging question in everyone’s minds — was the view exactly as per the website’s claim?
We were assigned to room 407 and this was the view from our window the morning of our arrival:-
Just try to look past the ugly square right in front and focus on the scenery in the background. That’s Hagia Sophia on the left, the Marmara Sea in all of its shimmering glory, and the Blue Mosque hiding behind the Golden Horn Hotel (dang!) on the right. The view was actually very calming. I was entertained by the constant movement of boats back and forth the Marmara Sea the whole time — small fishing boats, larger ferry boats, big tankers, huge cruise ships. When the weather is clear in the mornings, I could make out the shape of Galata Tower from the other side; in colder mornings, everything would be blanketed by grey fog, including the sea.
The view looks even better just after dusk, a.k.a. the photographer’s magic hour:-
The next morning, we went up to the restaurant at the rooftop terrace for breakfast and found the view of Hagia Sophia from there to be a hundred times better than it was from our room. Factor in a nice zoom lens (a Nikkor 18-200mm VR II that’s very handy for travel) and you get yourself a fantastic shot of the Hagia Sophia like this one:-
Unfortunately, there was just simply no way of seeing the Blue Mosque because the Golden Horn Hotel is blocking it entirely. [NB: The Golden Horn Hotel charges €140 per night for a double room, in case you’re wondering. It was also fully booked during our stay, with the only available room being a suite for €200.]
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the actual view that you get while having breakfast from the rooftop terrace of Hali Hotel:-
The view is actually very good BUT it is very different from what they advertise on their website where banner makes it appear as though the Blue Mosque is clearly visible from the hotel as well.
Nevertheless, I can just imagine how wonderful it would be in the summertime to have a leisurely breakfast at those tables outside in the rooftop terrace. During our stay, however, the weather was soooo cold in the mornings that, despite three layers of clothing on (including thermal underwear, a long overcoat, and leather gloves), it was impossible to stay outside longer than five minutes. Or maybe I’m just not used to cold weather…
Here is a video of the view from the rooftop terrace of Hali Hotel:-
Breakfast fare remained the same for the whole three days of our stay: a generous spread of crusty white bread, crusty brown bread, green olives, black olives, slabs of feta cheese, slices of yellow cheese (cheddar? I had no way of knowing; I just know it was good), sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, boiled eggs, various types of jam (including rose petals jam!), chocolate hazelnut spread (like Nutella), and plain yogurt with a molasses-like sauce which I suspected was pekmez (grape molasses). There was coffee, tea, and two types of fruit juice from concentrate which I don’t recommend.
I actually enjoyed the yogurt with pekmez. In fact, I miss it. I miss it a lot. The yogurt, despite being unflavoured, was light and pleasant and nothing like the sour stuff that we get here in Malaysia. And the molasses gave it just the right amount of sweetness that was not cloying or overwhelming in any way but rather perfectly complemented the light creaminess of the yogurt. That’s the yogurt right there, inside that small bowl in between the boiled egg and the cup of coffee.
The room was an entirely different story. It was clean, yes. The beds were comfortable enough, the towels were changed daily, and the beds were turned down every night. But the room was quite small and the furniture and carpet have seen better days.
Take note, as well, that the walls are not soundproof — I could actually hear the creaking of the wardrobe door from next door every time it opened and shut!
The airconditioner, the fridge, and the TV were so old that they made me feel like I got teleported back to the 80′s. Not that we watched any TV; all the stations were in Turkish. Besides, we were too tired and jetlagged to even bother to turn it on in the evenings.
The bathroom was spartan but clean and the hot water worked perfectly. Mind you, water in Turkey is quite salty, hence bath soap doesn’t get very sudsy. I ended up using shampoo as soap.
The room heating was also quite a disappointment for me — it was so cold inside the room! The room thermometer registered 20°C (68°F) at night but it always felt colder than that. I had fever and flu during our stay at Hali Hotel and I’m not sure if it was because of the weather (cold, rainy, and windy, uncharacteristic of the usual Turkish autumn weather, or so I was told) and/or the insufficient heating inside our room.
Oh, and be warned of the uber-cramped hotel lift. It measures something like 3 feet by 3 feet, just enough to fit in two adults and their luggage comfortably, assuming ‘normal’-sized luggage. You open a door and go in, press the number that corresponds to the floor where you want to go to, and stay close to the wall, away from the opening because there is nothing that separates you/your luggage/your hair/your clothes from the opening as the lift goes up and down. At least, there is a lift. I’ve been in small hotels in Paris and Amsterdam where you’d have to lug your own bags up and down steep and narrow staircases.
By the way, the lift only goes up to the 4th floor and you need to climb up a flight of stairs to go to the terrace for breakfast:-
The hotel also has a small lounge and bar in the ground floor (which seemed to be deserted all the time):-
The hotel also has a couple of computers where you can access the internet in the ground floor:-
If you have a laptop, I am certain that you’d interested to know that wireless internet connection is free but they change the password regularly so be sure to check with the reception everyday. The connection speed tends to slow down in the evenings though.
So what’s my verdict on this hotel?
Pro: For its facilities and condition, I find €80 quite reasonable, considering that nearby hotels are all hovering around €100-€120. [NB: I can only assume that Turkish people get better rates because the officer at the Turkish Embassy in Kuala Lumpur told me that room rates in that area should be about half of that.]
Con: For backpackers and travelers on a tight budget, €80 a night might be a bit too much.
Pro: The view from Room 407 was great, as was the view from the rooftop terrace.
Con: The view from other rooms are not necessarily as nice as Room 407′s. And the website’s claim about the view that one gets to see every day during breakfast is grossly misleading.
Pro: Its central location makes it very easy to access Sultanahmet tram station, the numerous restaurants and shops in Divan Yoglu, Hagia Sophia, Sultanahmet Park, and Blue Mosque. And the Grand Bazaar is only 2 tram stops away or about 15 minutes walk.
Con: Considering how disappointed I was with the heating, I’m quite concerned about how its airconditioning fares in the summertime.
Pro: Free WiFi! I never underestimate the value of free WiFi. I’ve stayed in very expensive hotels and it annoys me to no end when they have the gall to charge extra for internet access on top of their already exorbitant charges.
Con: The same breakfast menu each and every day can get quite boring.
So would I stay at Hali Hotel again? My decision would largely depend on my budget. If I want to stay in Sultanahmet area and can afford to shell out an extra €40-60 per night, I’d pick Ambassador Hotel or Golden Horn Hotel anytime. If I’m comfortable with €80 and all I want is a bed to crash in at night, I don’t mind staying at Hali Hotel again. But if the heating in the other rooms is similar to Room 407, I’d be very hesitant for sure.
Whatever the case, it’s high time that Hali Hotel updated its website and posted an updated photo of the actual view that one gets from their rooftop terrace.
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Hali Hotel
Address: Klodfarer Cd. No:20 Sultanahmet-Istanbul
Phone: +90 (212) 516 21 70 (2 lines)
+90 (212) 516 17 77 (2 lines)
Fax: +90 (212) 516 21 72
E-mail: halihotel@halihotel.com
