In Istanbul you can tour Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapı Palace and the Basilica Cistern on the historic peninsula, see the Süleymaniye Mosque, walk the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar, look at the mosaics of the Chora, climb the Galata Tower, and follow the Bosphorus past its palaces and fortresses from Dolmabahçe to Rumeli Hisarı. Below, these and the city's museums, old quarters and islands are grouped by area so that neighbouring places can share a day; each has its own guide on this site with the visiting details.
The historic peninsula: Sultanahmet's monuments
Hagia Sophia is the place to begin. The building standing today is the third on its ground, the one Justinian commissioned from Anthemios of Tralles and Isidoros of Miletos. It was a church for 916 years, a mosque after Mehmed II took the city in 1453, a museum from 1934, and a mosque again since 2020. Inside, look up at the dome, built of bricks made light and strong to survive earthquakes, and at mosaics from several periods, among them the apse mosaic, the first made after iconoclasm ended in 843.
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque was raised between 1609 and 1620 for Ahmed I by Sedefkâr Mehmet Ağa, a pupil of Sinan. Its popular name, the Blue Mosque, comes from the tiles: 21,043 of them, made in İznik and Kütahya and set out in more than fifty patterns. Its six minarets were something no earlier mosque had attempted, and the sultan's pavilion at its south-east corner now holds the Carpet Museum.
Topkapı Palace fills Sarayburnu, the point of the peninsula where the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn meet. Built for Mehmed II in 1478, it was where the Ottoman state was governed and where its sultans lived for about 380 years. The monumental way in is the Imperial Gate behind Hagia Sophia, and beyond it the palace divides into the service courts of the Birun and the private quarters of the Enderûn. It has been a museum since 9 October 1924. When the palace went up, its outer walls were run between Hagia Sophia and Hagia Irene, the only church surviving from Byzantium with an atrium; the church became the palace armoury and, in the nineteenth century, the first museum of the Ottoman state.
Underground, south-west of Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern was built in 526–27 under Justinian. Its three hundred and thirty-six columns rise out of the water in rows, and among them are the inverted Medusa heads. The Istanbul Archaeology Museums, reached from the Gülhane tram stop, are three museums on one site: the Tiled Kiosk of 1472, the oldest building there; the Museum of the Ancient Orient; and the Archaeological Museum with its sarcophagi, the Alexander sarcophagus among them. Two more museums stand by Sultanahmet Square. The Great Palace Mosaics Museum, in the Arasta bazaar, shows a sixth-century floor of hunting and country scenes left from the Byzantine palace, and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, in the İbrahim Paşa Palace on the west side of Sultanahmet Square, holds Turkish carpets from the thirteenth century to the twentieth.
Süleymaniye and the two great bazaars
Sinan called the Süleymaniye Mosque the work of his journeyman years. It was built for Süleyman the Magnificent between 1551 and 1558, and its main dome stands 53 metres above the floor. Sixty-four earthenware jars set into the dome with their mouths turned inward give the hall its acoustics, and the arches rest on four granite columns brought from Alexandria, Baalbek, the Column of Marcian and the imperial palace.
The Grand Bazaar was founded in 1461 to earn an income for Ayasofya, and over the centuries it grew into the commercial heart of the region. Today it covers 45,000 square metres with some 3,600 shops selling carpets, textiles, gold and silver, antiques, tiles and souvenirs; walking it all takes more than a day. The Spice Bazaar was built between 1660 and 1664 as the market of the Yeni Cami complex. It was paid for with revenues from Egypt, which is where its Turkish name, the Egyptian Bazaar, comes from, and its shops now sell mostly spices and Turkish delight.
Chora, Balat and Eyüp
In Edirnekapı, near the Theodosian walls, the Kariye Mosque was once the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora. The finest of its mosaics and frescoes were made between 1310 and 1317 for Theodore Metochites, who rebuilt the monastery, and they survived because the conversion of 1511 covered them with paint and lime rather than destroying them. The building opened for worship on 6 May 2024.
Balat, also in Fatih, is a quarter of steep streets and painted houses, the place photographers come for. Mosques, churches and synagogues stand side by side because different communities lived here together; the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Fener Greek high school are among its landmarks. The Golden Horn ferry stops here, and buses run from Eminönü. The Eyüp Sultan Mosque, built in 1458, has the tomb of Eyüp Sultan at the centre of its complex and an old plane tree shading the courtyard. At Hasköy on the Golden Horn, the Rahmi M. Koç Museum covers industry and transport, with a submarine you can walk through and the Fenerbahce ferry.
Galata and Beyoğlu: a tower, a dervish lodge and the art museums
The Galata Tower was laid by the Genoese in 1348 as the head of their walls, and was later a lookout, a prison, an observatory and a fire watch. A lift runs to the sixth floor and stairs climb to the terrace, which takes in the old city, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn together. Down the hill near Tünel, the Galata Mevlevi Lodge, founded in 1491, sets out its displays in the semahane, the hall built for the whirling ceremony, with musical instruments and calligraphy in the galleries; the grounds hold the tomb of the poet Şeyh Galib.
Beyoğlu is also where the art museums gather. The Pera Museum in Tepebaşı occupies the former Bristol Hotel and shows Orientalist painting, Anatolian weights and measures, and Kütahya tiles. İstanbul Modern, on the Karaköy waterfront, reopened on 4 May 2023 in a building by Renzo Piano and collects modern art across painting, sculpture, photography and design. In Çukurcuma, the Museum of Innocence is Orhan Pamuk's museum of collected objects, sharing its name with his novel.
The Bosphorus: palaces, fortresses and a waterside mosque
On the European shore at Beşiktaş, Dolmabahçe Palace runs 600 metres along the water. It was built for Sultan Abdülmecid by Garabet Amira Balyan and his son Nigoğos Balyan in a European manner, and it was formally opened on 7 June 1856. Also in Beşiktaş, the Ortaköy Mosque, by Nigoğos Balyan in 1853, stands right at the water's edge, its tall windows letting the light of the strait into the hall.
Rumeli Hisarı in Sarıyer guards the narrowest point of the strait, 698 metres across. Mehmed II built it in a few months of 1452, before the conquest, and its three great towers carry the names of the pashas who oversaw them; cannon and a length of chain are shown in the garden. Also in Sarıyer, at Emirgan, the Sakıp Sabancı Museum occupies the Atlı Köşk, holds the family's collection of paintings, book arts and calligraphy, and has become known internationally for its temporary exhibitions.
The Asian shore has its own palace. Beylerbeyi Palace in Üsküdar was built between 1863 and 1865 to a design by Sarkis Balyan, and Abdülaziz, who loved the sea, had ship motifs worked into its ceilings. Küçüksu Pavilion, between the Göksu and Küçüksu streams, is a lodge built for Abdülmecid whose Italian marble fireplaces each differ in colour and form. Off Salacak, the Maiden's Tower sits on its islet with the lighthouse that has guided ships past it for centuries.
Out to the Princes' Islands
Ferries from Sirkeci, Kabataş, Kadıköy, Bostancı and Kartal reach Büyükada, the largest of the Princes' Islands. The Museum of the Princes' Islands, in a renovated former helicopter hangar, tells the islands' story from their geology to the present through archive documents, photographs and recordings. Büyükada Nature Park, reached from the landing on foot or by rented bicycle, has a beach under pine woods; the park directorate warns swimmers to watch for currents.
How the groups fit together
The groups above follow the districts. The Sultanahmet monuments, Süleymaniye, the bazaars, Chora and Balat are all in Fatih, on the historic peninsula; the Galata Tower stands on the hill north of the Golden Horn in Beyoğlu; and the Bosphorus sights are spread along both shores of the strait, Dolmabahçe and Ortaköy on the European side, Beylerbeyi and Küçüksu on the Asian. Each place's own page has the visiting details and, where the source gives them, opening hours and fees.
