Hi Sue

It's nice to hear from you again. The Intercontinental is a lovely hotel, located in the Taksim Square area. Have you visited in Istanbul before, or is this your first visit? If yes, this is a very good choice. If not, I'd suggest finding a hotel in the Sultanahmet area. It's easy walking from Blue Mosque to Hagia Sophia to Topkapi to the Grand Bazaar. There are a number of ottoman hotels (including the one Andi recommended) as well as the Eresin Crown hotel (a little further from center, more modern). The Four Seasons is also there. Hard to justify the price, but it's wonderful. We were just in Istanbul about 4 weeks ago.

We've toured twice using Credo Tours to put our itineraries together. We found them using the Tom's Turkey Planner website. Credo was able to get us discounted rooms at the Four Seasons in 2006. I was pretty surprised at the increase in costs from 2006 to 2009. I did not ask them to help with Istanbul hotels on this last visit, so can't tell you what kind of pricing was available. We learned, while we were there, tourism has increased dramatically in Turkey this year. Hence, there's an increase in demand for quality guides.

Cappadocia is a wonderful visit. If you are reasonably fit and mobile, it affords terrific natural sights, very friendly people and lovely walking areas. Full of history .. amazing frescos .. a full-bore whirling dervish ceremony (takes 2-3 hours). We bought our carpets there, as Andi suggests. A dealer who also had a store in NYC simply included them in his next crate shipping to the US. Four weeks later, we had our rugs delivered to our home. We also bought one piece of the Iznik pottery. Quite expensive and really lovely.

We stayed at the Sacred House hotel in Urgup, arranged by Credo. It's a cave hotel with a bright, open courtyard. There's a great restaurant within walking distance, Sominee, where we ate dinner. Alternatively, the hotel would prepare dinner if you arranged it at breakfast time.

The other stop we made was in Fethiye (? sp), around the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. I toyed with the idea of booking a short gulet cruise. We were pretty much past the season when we got there. Lots of football on TV in the pubs during the evening. The Lycian Way runs near this town, so we hiked a short stretch and saw some amazing artifacts as part of that tour. If you get outside the town, it's quite rural. It gave us a different flavor for this region of Turkey.

If you have more questions, just fire away. Cheers, Anne