fleetway travel booked this for me.i normally book flghts and hotel myself, but this time decided to trust fleetway,travel company.
more fool me!!!! as it cost approx nine pounds in phone calls! as it a 078 number.and got oh so gently railroaded into this substandard accomodation
this aside.
Hotel birbey was situated in dark corner that even the taxis driver had difficulty finding.
the foyer was dark, dingy, but seemed to be quasi grand to my niave eyes.....i felt it was odd, but as i had no pre conceptions of Turkish culture took it as perhaps standard.
the room we were given had broken bathroom lights, and when they were mended , after two requests, this only erved to illusatrate that the bathroom was a dank and mildly unpleasant place we had to visitas a matter of uregency.
the room had graffiti in biro and marker pen under the shelf of the bed, the skirting boards ahd long since vanished. the decor was probably fashionable in the 80's.the room smelt of ciggie smoke and the door didnt really fit properly. using the 'key' was an art in itself
The breakfast was sparse...olives, tasteless feta and tasteless bread, and tasteless tea and boiled eggs. [white]
As a fairly healthy couple, however,we had a great laugh. the bed was clean and comfortable. the beauitful and eerie mosque chanting was clear and magical in our room.
But if you are looking for 'nice' area, and any luxury, then forget this place.Having said that we felt quite safe...the shops didint have people harrasing us,it was rather like a back street in a british town... busy with goods and deliveries...but no amenities for tourists.
ALSo a word of warning. make sure you have written down the name of the airport you flew into,. Do not accept the abbreviation SOL....... get the proper name.!
We gave our taxi driver the name [SOL} that was plastered all over out bookin documents, and he took us to turkish international airport.We knew it was wrong place, it didnt look right and th it was too close, the fare was too low. i was baffled.
I
asked airport staff. they even security checked us.
i ran about asking everyone on every desk if we were at the right place, .. everyone except one girl said we were at the right airport.
i have no idea why so many people had no clue.

the last girl said we needed to go to security area, and it ended up costing us 70 gbp to be taken the 1.5 hours to the right airport.
There was no malice from anyone at any time regrding this total mess..its just lucky we had misread our flight times......this gave usd two hours we had never anticipated we might need to kill.
some times being incompetent pays off.


istanbul is fab, but you dont really need to stay at the birbey.there seemed nicer hotels in this area, but i have no idea how cheap they were.
the turks are lovely.
we got to know some lovely grot shop keepers.
very nice , hard working, humorous people.
enjoy
if you get lumped at the birbey....the dont panic! its not the end of the world or anything. we felt safe.