Istanbul 4-day Itinerary

After conquering Constantinople, Mehmet the Conqueror converted the Hagia Sophia, the great Byzantine church, into a mosque. By the 1500s, the sultans were transforming Istanbul’s skyline with spectacular granite, marble and tile mosques inspired by the Hagia Sophia – many including complexes of hammams, schools, libraries and markets to fund them.

The legacy was almost 3,000 mosques (more than any other city on earth) of which the magnificent Ottoman imperial mosques – the 17th-century Blue Mosque and Sinan’s Suleymaniye Mosque – are the undoubted stars.

A masterpiece of Byzantine architecture, this world-renowned 6th-century marvel encapsulates the essence of the lost Ottoman Empire in stone.

With a great dome and marble columns adorned with frescoes and glittering gold mosaics, the Church of the ‘Holy Wisdom’ was the last major creation of classical antiquity and the centre of the Byzantine world for 1,000 years. Initially a cathedral, then a mosque, it’s now a museum as well as a functioning mosque – and a must-see in Istanbul.

Built on the orders of Sultan Ahmet I (1603–17) to rival the Hagia Sophia in grandeur and beauty – and completed in 1616, one year before his death – the Blue Mosque (aka Sultan Ahmed Mosque) is considered one of the last great mosques of the classical period, combining Byzantine elements with traditional Islamic architecture.

With six slender minarets and a beautiful dome, it dominates Istanbul’s skyline. The interior is decorated with 21,000 hand-painted (mostly blue) tiles and stunning stained-glass windows.

The whole area around the Blue Mosque was once the site of the Byzantine emperors’ Great Palace. Some of the palace’s recently discovered, lavish floor mosaics, dating from AD 450-550, are on display at the Great Palace Mosaic Museum.

Dating from the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, this ‘Underground Palace’ is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns (reservoirs) built beneath Istanbul to provide water to the palaces of the Ottoman emperors. Illuminated, and decorated with marble columns and carved capitals from earlier churches, it’s a magical sight.   

The name derives from a great Basilica – the Stoa Basilica – that once stood here, built between the 3rd and 4th centuries during the Early Roman Age.

Built in 1459 to become the 15th and 16th-century home of the Ottoman Sultans, this enormous complex became the centre of the Ottoman world. Now it’s a perfectly preserved time capsule of life at the top in this most exotic of empires. Some parts of the palace, especially the harem and the sultans’ private quarters, rank among the finest works of Turkish architecture and art.

The museum holds Ottoman clothing, weapons, armour, miniatures, religious relics, and illuminated manuscripts such as the Topkapi manuscript. The collections the sultans piled up over the centuries – from glittering jewels to Prophet Muhammad’s tooth – are beyond belief.

Dressed in long white robes with tall hats symbolising tombstones, members of the Mevlevi order (more popularly known as whirling dervishes) are followers of the 13th-century mystic Mevlana Rumi, who would spin into ecstatic circles overcome by his love for God.

The sema ceremony recalls Rumi’s spiritual journey as the dervishes whirl to the Sufi’s haunting, hypnotic music. UNESCO recently placed the dervishes on its Intangible Heritage of Humanity list.

The Hodjapasha Culture Center, an Istanbul cultural centre housed in a 15th-century bathhouse, stages a haunting sema of dervishes whirling to a classical Turkish orchestra, and other traditional dances from across Anatolia.

Dances of Colours perform traditional semas in an equally authentic setting: the 19th-century home of dervish Ismail Dede Efendi.

A modern art museum housing the finest collection of modern and contemporary art in the country. The Modern’s temporary exhibits by Turkish and international artists – often organized in collaboration with MoMA (New York) and the Centre Pompidou (Paris) – are particularly exceptional.

Built in 1892 at the terminus of the legendary Orient Express, the Pera Palace Hotel is a historic monument and the most famous hotel in Istanbul – this is where everyone from Alfred Hitchcock to the Kennedys bedded down in the golden age of travel. Room 411 is where Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express.

For a refined escape from the bustle of the city, and to experience old imperial Istanbul, stop in for traditional English afternoon tea in the hotel’s atmospheric, red-velvet, gilt-edged Kubbeli Salon. Join the Istanbul elite, who lap up French pastries served on rare Christofle silver, to the accompanying sounds of a live Schiedmayer grand piano.

The legendary Pera Palace remains an icon of imperial grandeur.

It’s the oldest shopping mall in the world, and possibly the biggest, with 5,000 shops to browse through. Glittering like Aladdin’s cave, Istanbul’s Covered Market or Grand Bazaar consists of 66 streets covered with stone vaulting and enclosed by a wall.

All of Turkey’s treasures are on display, but it’s an everyday market too, selling everything from diamonds to dishcloths; during peak times there are as many as half a million people inside its walls. Maybe not the best place for bargains, but an unparalleled treat for the senses, and an essential part of the Istanbul experience.

After conquering Constantinople, Mehmet the Conqueror converted the Hagia Sophia, the great Byzantine church, into a mosque. By the 1500s, the sultans were transforming Istanbul’s skyline with spectacular granite, marble and tile mosques inspired by the Hagia Sophia – many including complexes of hammams, schools, libraries and markets to fund them.

The legacy was almost 3,000 mosques (more than any other city on earth) of which the magnificent Ottoman imperial mosques – the 17th-century Blue Mosque and Sinan’s Suleymaniye Mosque – are the undoubted stars.

With its 53m-high dome and trademark slender minarets, this is Istanbul’s grandest mosque and a Byzantine beauty.

Modelled on the Hagia Sophia and designed by the greatest Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan, it was built in 1558 for the most powerful of Ottoman sultans, Suleyman I, also known as ‘The Magnificent’, and houses the mausoleums of both the sultan and Mimar Sinan.

Built in the 17th century, Istanbul’s second largest bazaar is a colourful, fragrant wonderland and a must-visit for anyone curious about Istanbul’s east-meets-west culture.

Once the last stop for caravans arriving on the Silk Road from China, the Spice (or Egyptian) Bazaar now only deals in spices, nuts, honeys, teas, hennas and sweets, including dozens of flavours of lokum (known elsewhere as turkish delight), which was invented by an Istanbul pastry chef in 1776.

Linking the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, the 32km Bosphorus strait divides Istanbul itself, and Europe from Asia. One of the world’s busiest waterways, it’s also one of the most fascinating – passing grand Ottoman palaces, the majestic Bosphorus bridge, picturesque Ottoman yalis (wooden villas), seaside villages and the Rumeli Hisari (‘the Fortress of Europe’).

Options range from one-hour trips to a full day’s cruise, on vessels ranging from no-frills public ferries to luxury dinner cruises.

This luxurious, modern ‘European’ palace on the banks of the Bosphorus was built on the order of the Ottoman Empire’s 31st Sultan, Abdulmecid I, and was built between the years 1843 and 1856. An extraordinary and unique architectural curiosity, the Dolmabahce blends Ottoman architecture with Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical details – it’s overwhelming to the point of kitsch, and so lavish that it bankrupted the Empire.

Don’t trust the clocks: they all say 9.05, stopped at the hour when the Turkish revolutionary statesman Ataturk died here on 10 November 1938.