Metrocity

Metrocity is the answer to a practical question: if a guest wants a big, well-stocked shopping centre and does not want to think about it, which one is least effort from Heya?

This one. The M2 line runs from Taksim to Levent without a single change, and Metrocity sits directly above Levent station, so you are on the shopping floor before you have finished looking at the platform signage. Around twenty-five minutes door to door.

It is a workhorse rather than a destination. Inside there is a large Migros and a Carrefour-SA, which is the genuinely useful part — supermarkets in Turkish malls are well stocked, well priced, and a good place to buy things for the flight home. Around them sit the usual chain fashion and electronics: C&A, Teknosa, Boyner, and a multi-screen cinema. There is a food court upstairs.

What you will not get here is atmosphere. Metrocity does not have Kanyon’s planted canyon or Zorlu’s terraces, and the Bosphorus view belongs to neither. But if the plan is shopping rather than sightseeing, and the day is hot or wet, spending three hours here is a perfectly reasonable way to do it.

If you have the stamina, pair it with Kanyon next door or with a walk down Levent Çarşısı afterwards, which has a different, more local character.