Until the W Barcelona officially pops its cork this fall, the W Istanbul remains Europe’s only W Hotel. The NYT’s Fred Bernstein checked the place out recently, so we thought we’d compare his observations to those of HotelChatter’s Shira Levine, who just last month filed her own review of the “crazy sexy cool” spot. Overall, the two agreed on much.

Highlights: “There is no perfect spot in Istanbul — the city is too vast and complicated — but the W’s comes close,” Bernstein says. (Er, Levine put it differently: “W Istanbul is located on an attractive but weird corner where there is a complicated traffic pattern.”)

Last week Shira Levine spent a few days getting her Turkish Delight on in Istanbul, Turkiye ("Turkey is a bird; Turkiye is the country") and checking out the transcontinental Eurasian city's hotel scene. Any questions about where to stay in Turkiye? Send 'em to us and we'll have Shira answer them for you.

By director Oliver Stone's "Midnight Express" film portrayal, if there is one notable Turkish site to skip over it's the inside of a Turkish prison. But if it's the inside of a Neoclassical jail conversion and that jail conversion happens to now be a Four Seasons, we learned that staying a few night doesn't compromise sanity, just bank accounts. ]]> shiralevine 2009-05-28T17:03:03-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/5/27/10358/7484 <![CDATA[<p><img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/1425/wistanbulentrance.jpg" class="top"> <p> <i>Last week <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/user/shiralevine">Shira Levine</a> spent a few days getting her Turkish Delight on in <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/city/Istanbul"><b>Istanbul, Turkiye</b></a> ("Turkey is a bird; Turkiye is the country") and checking out the transcontinental Eurasian city's hotel scene. Any questions about where to stay in Turkiye? <a href="mailto:tips@hotelchatter.com">Send 'em to us</a> and we'll have Shira answer them for you.</i><p> With Istanbul the first European country to bag a <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/tag/w hotels"><b>W Hotel</b></a>, we knew there wasn't a chance in Turkish prison hell that Starwood would mince on the <i>fabulosity</i> for <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/W+Hotel+Istanbul/ian/263900"><b>W Istanbul</b></a>. Especially when the location is in the renovated Akaretler Row Houses of the exclusive Besiktas district. Back in the 1870s those row houses served as the shiralevine 2009-05-27T16:31:32-05:00 Search HotelChatter string http://www.hotelchatter.com/search/