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Tuzla is a wonderful area on the edge of Istanbul. It has much fewer tourists and more of the local people, which gives it a more authentic feel of its culture. Despite having many restaurants and cafes now, you can still enjoy its calm atmosphere.

You need to get the little bus has small red sign on the top (cash only it was 12 TL each) and goes to the marina (viaport mall) you can get off at the marmaray station if you want train into the city. It is very frequent and the bus stop is at the entrance to the complex. Migros jet is there too, but closes at 9pm. Local people were very helpful, just ask if you need to know where things are. We used Google translate a lot. We had dreadful weather for the last 2 days but went to Viaport by bus as there was shopping and loads of restaurants for us. If using the marmaray consider getting an Istanbul Kart for train,metro,tram etc, makes travelling easy. The city was about 1 hour away by train once you got to the Marmaray station. The local people are incredibly well behaved on public transport, very polite and we usually had a seat ( it’s busy and we are old!) we are not used to such behaviour, no one found it necessary to have loud conversations on their phone, eat drink and generally make a nuisance of themselves as is normal in the UK.

I only stopped for a few hours before catching a connecting flight, woukd like to come again and explore the area.There were lots of food places but nothing for a vegetarian mostky just meat, so I had to survive on just salad. Taxi is quite expensive, if you are staying longer might be better to hire a car, but driving in the European side of Istanbul is nearly impossible due to tight streets, tram line and unusuall lay out of roads.