Istanbul Guided Private Tours — Attraction in Beyoğlu

While in Istanbul to start a Viking cruise, we arranged 2 days of private tours with KSG tours and specifically Lale. They provided transportation for both days and actually picked us up at the Conrad hotel both days. There were 4 of us in the group and one of our members was mobile challenged yet Lale didn’t blink an eye and adjusted excellently. She found a wheelchair for our member in the Blue mosque and Topkapi palace and arranged the transportation beautifully. The transportation for the 4 of us was a wonderful van and she was able to sit in the van and face us (as compared to us having to look at her back) and excellently described the top sights of Istanbul. She designed the tour that included the Blue mosque, Hagia Sophia, Basilica Cistern, Topkapi Palace, Beylerbeyi palace (on the Asia side next to the Bosphorus), the Grand Bazaar, and the spice market. The highlight though was the lunch place on our first day. It took us a while to climb up to it but the views were absolutely stunning and there was virtually no one else in the restaurant. The food and drinks were excellent and the entire experience was unforgettable. It helped that it was a sunny day. Still, we asked to have lunch in a place without a bunch of tourists and Lale did that wonderfully. On the second day, the weather was not as agreeable and we were rushed through lunch but we had very good basic Turkish food in a non-tourist environment. In the Grand Bazaar, we asked Lale for some help in finding good shops for jewelry, leather and spices and she led to us to very good places. Without her, we would have wandered for hours and would probably still be lost in there somewhere. At the end of each day, they transported us back to our hotel. Her descriptions of Turkish life, the importance of each of the sights, and the descriptions of the places we visited were outstanding. On the first day, when it was sunny, we stopped at a terrific place to get some baklava and then drove up to the top of a hill on the Asian side for awesome views and Turkish coffee to accompany the baklava. Another very memorable moment. I would highly recommend KSG Tours and Lale as private guides in Istanbul. Lale made our visit truly memorable. For the total of 2 days (16 hours) the cost was about 60 euros per hour or about 250 euros per person for the two days. Many of the excursions from the Viking ship also cost in that range or more for two days and they didn’t get the personalized...

Completed a successful 10 day "Turkiye Tryst" 12th to 22nd April 2023 organised by Tarik Saylan of "Guided Istanbul tours"..with 21 pax. It was exactly a year since i started correspondence with Tarik ,it was his quick replies and suggestions to routing and rerouting as i changed my mind couple of times that made me decide to go with Guided Istanbul tours. May be over 100 mails n numerous phone calls. Our itinerary included bus journeys & 2 flts , after 3 days in istanbul we proceeded to Cannakale with an overnite stop for Troy to visit the legendary Trojan horse as we grew up reading all about it. Highly recommend spending a day in this cute town of Cannakale... excellent food night life n more so low prices. .and a beautiful water front promenade... Proceeded to visit Pergamon, Euphesus & Pamukale with a 3 nite's stay in yet another beautiful town Kusadasi on Agean sea.

The only hard thing of the whole trip was getting the flight to Capadocia at 6.25am from Izmir Airport . We had an excellent guide Mr Ertugrul Ucar a historian, architect n part archeologist...great knowledge,.good command of English ,patient kind , punctual & answered all our queries also recommended nice places for meals .He was with us from day 02 upto day 8 to Izmir Airport. Our Driver Imdat Erol was excellent, perfect driving skills, cautious & friendly but didnt know a word of English , communicated with the help of google translstor. Capadócia experience was of another kind.. our guide Ozge Ozturk we called her Olga was so versatile perfect in guiding , happy , helpful and great in her job. The choice of hotels was excellent, comfortable in prime location, good breakfast with good restaurants. All our tours good and timings well controlled by the guides. The dinners hosted by the Agency were excellent too. A surprise Birthday cake cutting & singing awaited us as 2 travellers celebrated their birthdays at Uranos Sarıkaya Capadócia at our cultural show n dinner..i appreciate your kind gesture Tarik. Our thanks to the guides Mr Ertugrul Ucar and Ms Ozge Ozturk for being excellent and also to the driver Mr Imdat Erol. Tarik a big thank you , you did a great job, organised our trip to being perfect , we completed without a single hitch , wish you all...

We traveled as a family with young children to Istanbul and Capadocia in June. Kadir Kurt and his team were excellent in communicating with us. The Istanbul portion was good and having private van service to get to the sites outside of the Sultanahmet area was convenient for the family and drivers were professional and courteous.

Where I think they really shine was the customer service. Kadir made all the arrangements for our Capadocia trip including domestic flights, hotels, tours. It went smoothly and loved the MDC Cave Hotel he arranged for us. Our tour guide Mahmoud in Capadocia was awesome.

Kadir got our family out of a bind as well. We originally arranged airport transfer with the owner of the apartment rental we were staying at and he dropped the ball with the return trip to the airport. A last minute call to Kadir and he had his driver come and get us to the airport in time. Helped us avoid a disaster. For that I'm truly grateful. Thanks...