Istanbul, Turkey

Day 1

• Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya)

  Foreign visitors pay €25 and enter the upper gallery, separate from the prayer hall: from up there you look at the Byzantine mosaics and, below, at the worshippers. The Müzekart and the Museum Pass are not valid here, and that is the commonest mistake made by people who buy one thinking it covers everything. It is a working mosque, so access stops during prayers, and Friday midday is the worst moment.

• Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Camii)

  Entry is free and stays free: it is a working mosque, not a museum, and you go in outside prayer times with shoulders and knees covered and a scarf for women, lent at the door. Shoes come off and are carried in a bag. The six thousand blue İznik tiles that give it its name are in the upper part, so look up: from below, with the naked eye, the blue is lost in the dimness.

• Topkapi Palace and Harem

  It is the sultans' labyrinth-residence for four centuries, and the part that surprises is not the treasury but the kiosks over the Bosphorus, from which you understand why the palace stands where it does. The Harem is a separate ticket, not included in the basic one, and the Müzekart is valid for neither the Harem nor Hagia Irene. Prices for foreigners are set in hard currency and change often: check the official site the day before rather than assuming.

Day 2

• Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan)

  They are 336 submerged columns that supplied Byzantine Constantinople, with the two upside-down Medusa heads at the far end, and it is the only cool thing in Sultanahmet in August. The visit is short, 30 minutes is enough. It is not covered by the Museum Pass and is run separately, with two sessions at different prices: the daytime one runs 09:00 to 18:30 and costs foreign visitors 1,950 lira, the evening one 19:30 to 22:00 and costs 3,000, with the theatrical lighting. Between the two the cistern shuts for an hour to turn the session over. Since 1 August 2025 cash is no longer taken at the entrance: card or Istanbulkart only.

• Galata Tower and Istiklal Caddesi

  The Genoese tower dominates the Golden Horn and going up is expensive: 30 € for foreign visitors, while Müzekart holders enter free until 18:30 and pay 200 lira after that. It opens daily 08:30-23:00 with last entry at 22:00, so the evening climb is possible and it is the one with the shortest queue. From there İstiklal begins, the pedestrian avenue with the red heritage tram, the 19th-century arcades and Taksim at the end. The side passages, like the Çiçek Pasajı, are the ones almost nobody pushes open. The crowd on İstiklal in the evening is dense: this is where you keep your phone in your pocket.

• Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar

  They are thousands of shops under vaults frescoed since the 15th century: ceramics, lamps, gold and carpets at the Grand Bazaar, spices, lokum and coffee at the Egyptian Bazaar near the Galata bridge. Haggling is part of it and is done with a smile, starting at about half. The Grand Bazaar closes on Sundays, which catches out weekend visitors, and the streets around it are where Turks actually shop.

Day 1

• Süleymaniye Mosque✦ hidden gem

  It is Sinan's masterpiece on the third hill, and for many the best moment in Istanbul precisely because it is not the Blue Mosque: fewer people, an enormous courtyard, and from the terrace behind it the Golden Horn seen from above. Entry is free and the usual rules of a working mosque apply. From Sultanahmet it is about 20 minutes on foot uphill, or one tram stop plus a short walk: that distance is what keeps it off the quick circuits. Around it are the complex's historic kitchens, where people eat kuru fasulye, the beans, as the students do.

• Balat and Fener✦ hidden gem

  They are the historic Greek and Jewish quarters on the Golden Horn, with coloured houses on steep streets, churches, synagogues and antique shops. It is the most photogenic part of the city and still not much walked, but it is also a lived-in and conservative neighbourhood: the houses are private and so are the windows. From Sultanahmet it is about 30 minutes by bus along the Golden Horn, and once there everything is uphill: start high and walk down towards the water, not the other way round.

• Kariye (Chora Church)✦ hidden gem

  They are the most extraordinary Byzantine mosaics and frescoes in the city after Hagia Sophia, in a former monastery near the Theodosian walls, now a mosque again. It sits far from Sultanahmet, about 15 minutes by taxi or half an hour by bus, and it is almost always quiet for exactly that reason. Having returned to worship, its hours follow the prayers and some parts may be covered: it is the kind of place to check on the day, because no published timetable really holds.

Day 2

• Kahvaltı, the Turkish breakfast✦ hidden gem

  Kahvaltı is not a breakfast but a weekend ritual: dozens of small plates with cheeses, olives, honeys, jams, eggs fried with sucuk, börek and bottomless tea, served until you say stop. It is done in twos or more, never alone, and it lasts hours. The cafés of Moda and Cihangir have made an institution of it: arrive hungry and skip lunch.

• Bosphorus ferry and the Asian side (Kadıköy and Moda)

  The scheduled ferry to Kadıköy is public transport and is paid with one Istanbulkart fare, not a tourist ticket: it is the cheapest Bosphorus cruise there is and it gives you the Sultanahmet skyline from the water. It is 20 minutes of sailing. On the far side is another Istanbul, with the Kadıköy market and the cafés of Moda, where there are few tourists and the prices are the real ones.

Day 1

• Balık ekmek and street food

  Balık ekmek is the grilled fish sandwich eaten on the quays at Eminönü watching the ferries, standing, with the juice press beside you. Simit are the sesame rings from the red carts and cost a few lira. Midye dolma, mussels stuffed with rice, are paid for by the piece and eaten one at a time with lemon: the seller keeps count by the shells, so you only learn how many you ate at the end.

• Meze and rakı

  The meyhane is the tavern and the evening works like this: the waiter brings the tray of cold meze and you choose by looking, not from a menu; the hot ones are ordered afterwards. Rakı is cut with water, turns white, and is drunk slowly across the whole dinner, never in one go. It is not a quick meal: it lasts hours and that is the point. The meyhane of Beyoğlu and Kadıköy are the right ones.

• Baklava and künefe

  Good baklava is glossy and crisp and you taste the clarified butter: the old pastry shops sell it by weight and cut it in front of you. Künefe arrives hot instead, with the cheese pulling and crisp kadayıf on top, and has to be eaten at once because cold it turns rubbery. The gap in price and quality between an old pastry shop and a kiosk in Sultanahmet is enormous, for things that look alike.

Day 2

• Kahvaltı, the Turkish breakfast✦ hidden gem

  Kahvaltı is not a breakfast but a weekend ritual: dozens of small plates with cheeses, olives, honeys, jams, eggs fried with sucuk, börek and bottomless tea, served until you say stop. It is done in twos or more, never alone, and it lasts hours. The cafés of Moda and Cihangir have made an institution of it: arrive hungry and skip lunch.

• Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar

  They are thousands of shops under vaults frescoed since the 15th century: ceramics, lamps, gold and carpets at the Grand Bazaar, spices, lokum and coffee at the Egyptian Bazaar near the Galata bridge. Haggling is part of it and is done with a smile, starting at about half. The Grand Bazaar closes on Sundays, which catches out weekend visitors, and the streets around it are where Turks actually shop.