This character-filled budget choice feels like your eccentric uncle's house, with pot plants, minor antiques and big old chairs in reception. The 20 rooms are neither gleaming nor large, and the shared bathrooms are like closets, but owner Mehmet is charming, helpful and speaks a little English.
It's on the clothes bazaar alley, just off Kazımpaşa Caddesi: walk two blocks north from the northeast corner of Cumhuriyet Meydanı then diagonally left up the lane facing the 1909 building that's now Ziraat Bankası.