Sights in Istanbul
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Topkapi Palace
This opulent palace is the subject of more colourful stories than most of the world’s museums put together. It was the home of Selim the Sot, who drowned in the bath after drinking too much champagne; İbrahim the Crazy, who lost his reason after being locked up for four years in the infamous palace kafes; and Roxelana, beautiful and malevolent consort of Süleyman the Magnificent. No wonder it’s been the subject of a popular feature film (Jules Dassin’s 1963 Topkapı ), an opera (Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio ) and a blockbuster social history (John Freely’s wonderful Inside the Seraglio ). There’s loads to see, so make sure you dedicate at least hal…
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Aya Sofya
Called Hagia Sofia in Greek, Sancta Sophia in Latin and the Church of the Divine Wisdom in English, İstanbul's most famous monument has long and fascinating history. Built by Emperor Justinian, it was constructed on the site of Byzantium's acropolis, which had also been the site of two earlier Aya Sofyas.
The first of these was a basilica with a timber roof completed in 360 by Constantine's son and successor, Constantinius, and was burned down in a riot in 404; and the second was a building commissioned by Theodosius II in 415 and destroyed in the Nika riots of 532. Justinian's church, which dwarfed all other buildings in the city, was completed in 537 and reigned as the…
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Dance of Colours
This popular two-part performance features a whirling dervish and Sufi music segment followed by dances from 10 different regions of Turkey. Colourful costumes and professional dancers make for a good evening’s fun, with the added bonus that you don’t have to fork out for an indifferent meal.
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Blue Mosque
With this mosque, Sultan Ahmet I (r 1603–17) set out to build a monument that would rival and even surpass the nearby Aya Sofya in grandeur and beauty. So enthusiastic was the sultan about his grand project that he is said to have worked with the labourers and craftsmen on site, pushing them along and rewarding extra effort. Ahmet did in fact come close to his goal of rivalling Aya Sofya, and in so doing achieved the added benefit of making future generations of hotel owners in Sultanahmet happy – a ‘Blue Mosque view’ from the roof terrace being the number-one selling point of the fleet of hotels in the area. The mosque’s architect, Mehmet Ağa, who had trained with Sina…
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Basilica Cistern
When those Byzantine emperors built something, they certainly did it properly! This extraordinary subterranean structure, built by Justinian in 532 (perhaps on the site of an earlier cistern), is the largest surviving Byzantine cistern in İstanbul. Now one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions, it’s a great place to while away 30 minutes or so, especially during summer when its cavernous depths stay wonderfully cool. The cistern’s roof is 65m wide and 143m long, and is supported by 336 columns arranged in 12 rows. It once held 80,000 cubic metres of water, delivered via 20km of aqueducts from a reservoir near the Black Sea. The cistern was constructed using colum…
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Bosphorus Night Cruise
One of the most enjoyable, and certainly most romantic, night-time activities in İstanbul is to take a Bosphorus ferry. Enjoy the view back to the Old City, the twinkling lights, the fishing boats bobbing on the waves and the powerful searchlights of the ferries sweeping the sea lanes.
The best ferry to catch for this purpose is the one from Karaköy (just over the Galata Bridge from Eminönü) to Kadıköy. Just go to Karaköy, buy two tokens (for the voyages out and back) and walk on board. When you reach Kadıköy you could head into the backstreets and grab a bite to eat.
A shorter ride is the one from Eminönü to Üsküdar. When you alight in Üsküdar, you could have a d…
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Istanbul Archaeology Museums
It may not attract the number of visitors that flock to nearby Topkapı, but this stunning museum complex is already one of the city’s top attractions. It can be easily reached by walking down the slope from Topkapı’s First Court, or by walking up the hill from the main gate of Gülhane Park. The complex is divided into three buildings: the Archaeology Museum (Arkeoloji Müzesi), the Museum of the Ancient Orient (Eski Şark Eserler Müzesi) and the Tiled Pavilion (Çinili Köşk). These museums house the palace collections formed during the late 19th century by museum director, artist and archaeologist Osman Hamdi Bey and added to greatly since the republic. While not immediately…
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Princes' Islands
Most İstanbullus refer to the Princes' Islands as 'The Islands' (Adalar), as they are the only islands around the city. They lie about 20km southeast of the city in the Sea of Marmara, and make a great destination for a day escape from the city.
You'll realise after landing that there are no cars on the islands, something that comes as a welcome relief after the traffic mayhem of the city. Except for the necessary police, fire and sanitation vehicles, transportation is by bicycle, horse-drawn carriage and foot, as in centuries past.
All of the islands are busy in summer, particularly on weekends. For that reason, avoid a Sunday visit. If you wish to stay overnight during …
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Kapalı Çarşı (Grand Bazaar)
Kapalı Çarşı (Grand Bazaar) has been a shopper's Mecca since just after the mid-15th century, when the smallish warehouse was turned into a teeming bazaar by a constant stream of traders, selling everything from carpets to cummin. These days it's the most fantastic, monstrous, labyrinthine and totally manic shopping bazaar you could hope to experience.
Tourist shops selling glittery geegaws line the main streets, but delve into the back streets and you'll still find Istanbullus buying a few metres of cloth, a gold bangle for a daughter's birthday, a beautifully crafted gold-plated 'eye' to ward off evil or an antique carpet. Before you visit, prepare yourself properly…
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Neve Shalom Synagogue
During the 19th century, Galata had a large Sephardic Jewish population and a number of synagogues. Most of this community has now moved to other residential areas in the city, but the synagogues remain. Tragically, this building (which dates from the 1930s) seems to have become a target for anti-Jewish extremists and it has suffered three attacks in recent decades – a brutal massacre by Arab gunmen during the summer of 1986, a bomb attack in 1992 and a 2003 car-bomb attack carried out by a motley group of Turkish Muslims inspired by Osama bin Laden. In a tragic irony, the name Neve Shalom means Oasis or Valley of Peace. To visit, fax a request including your name, addres…
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Topkapı Harem
These were the imperial family quarters, and every detail of Harem life was governed by tradition, obligation and ceremony. The word harem literally means 'private'.
Every traditional Muslim household had two distinct parts: the selamlık (greeting room) where the master greeted friends, business associates and tradespeople; and the harem (private apartments), reserved for himself and his family.
If you decide to tour the Harem at Topkapı Palace – and we highly recommend that you do – you’ll need to buy a dedicated ticket from the ticket office outside the Harem’s entrance. The fact that there is an extra entry charge means that many stingy tour companies neglect to bring …
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Grand Bazaar
Before you visit this, the most famous souq in the world, make sure you prepare yourself properly. First, make sure you’re in a good mood and ready to swap friendly banter with the hundreds of shopkeepers who will attempt to lure you into their establishments. There’s no use getting tetchy with the touts here – this is their turf and it would be delusional of you to think that you’re anything more than putty in their hands (and liras in their cash registers). Second, allow enough time to look into every nook and cranny, drink innumerable cups of tea, compare price after price and try your hand at the art of bargaining. Shoppers have been doing this here for centuries and,…
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Chora Church
Chora literally means ‘country’, reflecting the fact that when this church (also known as the Church of the Holy Saviour Outside the Walls) was built in AD 527–65 it was located outside the original city walls built by Constantine the Great. However, within a century it was engulfed by Byzantine urban sprawl and enclosed within a new set of walls built by Emperor Theodosius II. The environs of the church weren’t the only thing to change over the years – after centuries of use as a church the building became a mosque, Kariye Camii, after the Conquest and it now functions as a museum. And what you see today is not the original church-outside-the-walls. Rather, this one was …
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Dolmabahçe Palace
These days it’s fashionable for architects and critics influenced by the less-is-more aesthetic of the Bauhaus masters to sneer at buildings such as Dolmabahçe. The crowds that throng to this imperial pleasure palace with its neoclassical exterior and over-the-top interior fit-out clearly don’t share their disdain, though. More rather than less was certainly the philosophy of Sultan Abdül Mecit I, who, deciding that it was time to give the lie to talk of Ottoman military and financial decline, decided to move from Topkapı to a lavish new palace on the shores of the Bosphorus. For a site he chose the dolma bahçe (filled-in garden) where his predecessors Sultans Ahmet I …
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Hippodrome
The Hippodrome (At Meydanı) was the centre of Byzantium’s life for 1000 years and of Ottoman life for another 400 years. In its heyday, the arena consisted of two levels of galleries, a central spine, starting boxes and the semicircular southern end known as the Sphendone, parts of which still stand to the south of the Hippodrome. The level of galleries that once topped this stone structure was damaged during the Fourth Crusade and ended up being totally dismantled in the Ottoman period – many of the original columns were used in construction of the Süleymaniye Mosque.
The Hippodrome has been the scene of countless political dramas during the long life of the city. …
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Yildiz Park
Sultan Abdül Hamit II (r 1876–1909) didn’t allow himself to be upstaged by his predecessors. He built his own fancy palace by adding considerably to the structures built by earlier sultans in Yıldız Park, continuing the Ottoman tradition of palace pavilions that had been employed so wonderfully at Topkapı. It was to be the last sultan’s palace built in İstanbul. The park began life as the imperial reserve for the Çırağan Sarayı, but when Abdül Hamit built Yıldız Şale, largest of the park’s surviving structures, the park then served that palace and was planted with rare and exotic trees, shrubs and flowers. It also gained carefully tended paths and superior electric lighti…
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Süleymaniye Mosque
The Süleymaniye crowns one of the seven hills and dominates the Golden Horn, providing a landmark for the entire city. It was commissioned by the greatest, richest and most powerful of Ottoman sultans, Süleyman I (r 1520–66), known as ‘The Magnificent’, and was the fourth imperial mosque built in İstanbul, following the Fatih, Beyazıt and Selim I complexes. Though it’s not the largest of the Ottoman mosques, the Süleymaniye is certainly the grandest. It was designed by Mimar Sinan, the most famous and talented of all imperial architects. Though Sinan described the smaller Selimiye Camii in Edirne as his best work, he chose to be buried here in the Süleymaniye complex, pro…
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İstanbul Modern
In recent years İstanbul’s contemporary-art scene has boomed. Facilitated by the active cultural philanthropy of the country’s industrial dynasties – many of which have built extraordinary arts collections – museum buildings are opening nearly as often as art exhibitions. İstanbul Modern, funded by the Eczcıbaşı family, is the big daddy of them all. Opened with great fanfare in 2005, this huge converted shipping terminal has a stunning location right on the shores of the Bosphorus at Tophane and is easily accessed by tram from Sultanahmet. The museum’s curatorial program is twofold: the 1st floor highlights the Eczcıbaşı family’s collection of Turkish 20th-century and con…
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Church of St Stephen of the Bulgars
These days we’re accustomed to kit homes and assemble-yourself furniture from Ikea, but back in 1871, when this Gothic Revival cast-iron church was constructed from pieces shipped down the Danube and across the Black Sea from Vienna on 100 barges, the idea was extremely novel. It’s hard to say which is the more unusual: the building and its interior fittings –all made completely of cast iron – or the history of its congregation. During the 19th century, ethnic nationalism swept through the Ottoman Empire, with each of the empire’s many ethnic groups – who identified themselves on the basis of language, religion and racial heritage – wanting to rule its own affairs. This s…
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Florence Nightingale Museum
The experience of visiting the Selimiye Army Barracks, where this museum is housed, is actually better than the museum itself. The barracks, built by Mahmut II in 1828, is on the site of a barracks originally built by Selim III in 1799 and extended by Abdül Mecit I in 1842 and 1853. It is the headquarters of the Turkish First Army, the largest division in the country, and is an extremely handsome building, with 2.5km of corridors, 300 rooms and 300 windows. During the Crimean War (1853–56) the barracks became a military hospital where the famous lady with the lamp and 38 nursing students worked. It was here that Nightingale put in practice the innovative nursing methods t…
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Rahmi M Koç Industrial Museum
Hasköy, located on the Beyoğlu side of the Golden Horn, was for centuries a small, predominantly Jewish, village. In the Ottoman period it also became home to a naval shipyard and a sultan’s hunting ground. Today, its main claim to fame is this splendid museum dedicated to the history of transport, industry and communications in Turkey. Founded by the head of the Koç industrial group, one of Turkey’s most prominent conglomerates, it exhibits artefacts from İstanbul’s industrial past. The collection is highly eclectic, giving the impression of being a grab-bag of cool stuff collected over the decades or donated to the museum by individuals, organisations or companies who d…
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Flower Passage
Back in the days when the Orient Express was rolling into Old Stamboul and promenading down İstiklal Caddesi was the height of fashion, the Cité de Pera building was the most glamorous address in town. Built in 1876 and decorated in Second Empire style, it housed a shopping arcade as well as apartments. As Pera declined, so too did the building, its stylish shops giving way to cheap restaurant-taverns where in good weather beer barrels were rolled out onto the pavement, marble slabs were balanced on top, wooden stools were arranged and enthusiastic revellers caroused the night away. Renamed Çiçek Pasajı (Flower Passage), it continued in this vein until the late 1970s, whe…
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Museum of Turkish & Islamic Arts
This impressive museum is housed in the Palace of İbrahim Paşa, built in 1524 on the western side of the Hippodrome. İbrahim Paşa was Süleyman the Magnificent’s close friend and brother-in-law. Captured by Turks as a child in Greece, he was sold as a slave into the imperial household in İstanbul and worked as a page in Topkapı, where he became friendly with Süleyman, who was the same age. When his friend became sultan, İbrahim was made in turn chief falconer, chief of the royal bedchamber and grand vizier. This palace was bestowed on him by Süleyman the year before he was given the hand of Süleyman’s sister, Hadice, in marriage. Alas, the fairy tale was not to last for po…
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Yedikule Zindanlari
If you arrived in İstanbul by train from Europe, or if you rode in from the airport along the seashore, you will probably have noticed this fortress looming over the southern approaches to the city. One of the city’s major landmarks, it has a history as substantial as its massive structure. In the late 4th century Theodosius the Great built a triumphal arch here. When the next Theodosius built his massive land walls, he incorporated the arch in the structure. Four of the fortress’ seven towers were built as part of Theodosius II’s walls; the other three, which are inside the walls, were added by Mehmet the Conqueror. Under the Byzantines, the great arch became known as th…
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New Mosque
Only in İstanbul would a 400-year-old mosque be called ‘New’. The Yeni Camii was begun in 1597, commissioned by Valide Sultan Safiye, mother of Sultan Mehmet III (r 1595–1603). The site was earlier occupied by a community of Karaite Jews, radical dissenters from Orthodox Judaism. When the valide sultan decided to build her grand mosque here, the Karaites were moved to Hasköy, a district further up the Golden Horn that still bears traces of their presence. Safiye lost her august position when her son died and the mosque was completed six sultans later in 1663 by Valide Sultan Turhan Hadice, mother of Sultan Mehmet IV (r 1648–87). In plan, the New Mosque is much like…
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