Miniatürk

Miniaturk confuses me. I’ve been three times and while the first time I was completely underwhelmed (Turks hype this place up a bit), the second and third times I was just bored and kind of weirded out. For whatever reason this place attracts domestic and foreign tourists alike and while I can’t say it’s bad, «meh, I’ve experienced better» is exactly how I feel about it.
Several points here:
1. Many of the miniatures are in obvious disrepair. This annoys me because I honestly do not know what they are doing with your ticket fee (foreigners pay double what Turks pay).
2. Most of the exhibits are dirty and/​or damaged.
3. Information is given via a speaker voice that talks to you in the language of your ticket, which you scan at each exhibit. The idea is cool but the information given could not be more uninteresting. They usually just say what it is, when they started building it, when construction was complete, and its size. All of that info can be easily ascertained from looking at it and glancing at the plate next to it. So tell us something we couldn’t figure out from looking at it?!
4. It can be very crowded on nice days, making it awkward to listen to each information thing anyway and even more awkward to take you time viewing each miniature.
5. It is so far off the beaten path and not extremely easy to get to, it almost doesn’t make sense to come unless you are in a car or with a bus/​tour group.
6. There is nothing edible at the site. The «restaurant» offers and extremely limited selection of fast food and not even enough ketchup to drown out the taste.
7. All visitors MUST pass through the gift shop on the way out, which is stocked full of kitschy, outdated weirdness you would never ever want to buy ever.
Overall I think Miniaturk has potential and if was kept cleaner and more up-​to-​date I might get excited about going. If your expectations are low and you just want a general overview of famous Turkish architecture/​landmarks I guess it would be a fine thing to do. The ticket price is only 10 lira, after all.

A park full of miniature buildings, cheesy right?! My thoughts exactly… and then I had a great time there. Given the scale of the architectural sights in Istanbul, the miniatures give you a chance to view the buildings as a whole vice the partial perspectives you get when visiting them. Also, there were miniatures of all the great structures across Turkey, many of which I would not otherwise have known about since my family and I only had time to visit Istanbul.
This is also a great place for kids. There is plenty of walking to be done around the miniature buildings, a playground, and an arcade to help them blow off steam. This place was not on our itinerary, but I’m really happy that we visited.

Der Hammer! Miniaturpark der Türkei– viele Sehenswürdigkeiten des ganzen Landes in originalem Nachbau– es gibt einen «Leitfaden» der einen führt so, dass man nichts übersehen kann. Die Eintritskarte (in türkisch umgerechnet 2,50EUR und in english 5EUR was nebenbei bemerkt völlig angemessen ist) hält man an einen Scanner der die jeweilige Geschichte des Objektes erzählt. Coole Sache für wenig Geld! Wir waren insgesammt 1,5 Std dort und es war richtig informativ! Ach ja– es gibt auch einen grossen Istanbul Teil…