A friend and I decided to make Istanbul our half-way meeting point for a holiday. This is the same friend who visited Cyprus with me back in 2014. We chose to go in May again, but this time we crossed our fingers that it wouldn’t rain for the biggest part of our trip. We were lucky because the weather was gorgeous.

We stayed in Istanbul for five nights. We tried to pick a central location in a lively area, so we decided to stay in Beyoğlu near Istiklal Street (the high street of Istanbul); the hotel we chose was Peak Hotel and it was a great hotel, good value for money, delicious breakfast, and the location was absolutely perfect.

This post will be massive, and will contain many more pictures than you’re used of me. This might become a trend now that I’m interested in photography. In any case, in this post I will describe our days wanderings around Istanbul going to the main sights, there will be two more posts about two day trips we made while we were there.

Day 1

Galata Bridge
The first sightseeing day, we walked from our hotel in Beyoğlu to Sultanahmet where the famous sights are. There are plenty of trams that take you there, but we decided the morning workout would be good to digest the food from the culinary walking tour the day before. In order to reach Sultanahmet, you have to cross the Galata Bridge. As you’re crossing you’ll be greeted by the fishermen who spend most of their day fishing from the bridge. Below the bridge there are restaurants, I didn’t try them out but according to the Lonely Planet there are some nice fish restaurants there.

We saw a celebrity on the bridge as well one day, recording a music video. I think her name is Ziynet Sali, but I’m not sure. I haven’t found the music video yet. If someone knows which video clip this is, please leave a comment!

Topkapi Palace
The first destination in Sultanahmet was Topkapi Palace. It took us one hour to walk from Beyoğlu to Topkapi.

Get there early, because the queues at Topkapi Palace are looooong! A word of advice, don’t make the same mistake we made. When you get to Topkapi Palace, don’t join the queue at the gate here. You can only get through this gate if you already have a ticket! If you look at this gate, on your right you’ll see a small building with more queues. That’s where you pick up the ticket. I would heartily recommend to also get a separate ticket for the Harem, that was my favourite part of the palace.

When you finally get in, you’ll see what UNESCO meant when it said that this is “the best example of ensembles of palaces […] of the Ottoman period”. You enter into a big courtyard and everywhere around you there are entrances to the different living or working quarters of the former residence of the Ottoman sultans. I wasn’t very interested in what each room functioned as, the beauty of the painted ceilings and walls was enough for me to enjoy. It is important to mention that Topkapi Palace wasn’t designed with a specific masterplan in mind like  Schönbrunn Palace, instead all the different sultans added some new buildings of areas of there own. Construction started in 1459 and only in 1923 it was re-purposed into the museum it is today.

If you purchased the Harem entrance ticket like we did, you’ll also see the beauty of the living quarters of the women (sultan’s mother, his wives and concubines). The Harem is a huge building with a lot of different rooms. The main feature I fell in love with in Topkapi Palace and in the rest of Istanbul is the usage of Iznik tiles. When I move into my own house, my dream bathroom will be decorated with these tiles.

A part of the museum which in my opinion is not worth queuing for, is the Imperial Treasury. It contains some jewelry and some weapons, but on a busy day you’re herded around these treasures like cows. Best to skip this part when it’s busy. No photography allowed so I queued for a long time and I have nothing to show for it.

Hagia Sophia
From Topkapi Palace it’s a short walk to Hagia Sophia. The queue in front of the building was very long again, but like good tourists do, we didn’t leave this significant historical sight and we stood in line with the rest. However, leaving Hagia Sophia, I felt disappointed. It was not what I was expecting at all.

First of all there were building works going on. I don’t like it when  they make you pay full price for entry and when you get inside half of what you came to see is not visible.

Second of all, this Greek Orthodox Church (537-1453) turned mosque (1453-1931) turned museum just did not impress me. This building contained so much that it lost its charm and identity. Istanbul has many nice mosques and Hagia Sophia is not one of them. It also has some beautiful churches and Hagia Sophia is not one of them. We made a quick round through the church-cum-mosque, we walked through the courtyard and that was more than enough.

Day 1: Sultan Ahmed Mosque (aka Blue Mosque)
The Blue Mosque is right across the park from Hagia Sophia, so it’s easy to walk from one to the other.

The Lonely Planet advised us not to walk straight to the Blue Mosque though. Instead we followed the route past the Egyptian obelisks in order to reach a side entrance of the Blue Mosque. The view you get from there is spectacular (if it’s busy you have to wait a while to take a good picture). You get a good sense of all the different layers the Blue Mosque consists of.

Inside and outside, the Blue Mosque is hands down my favourite mosque in Istanbul.

Basilica Cistern
Another favourite that day is the Basilica Cistern, which is a water reservoir right underneath Sultanahmet. It’s a cathedral-sized cistern, the ceiling is held up by marble columns in the Ionic and Corinthian style.

The highlights of the Basilica Cistern are the two Medusa heads, which you can find at the end of the walking path. The Basilica Cistern is something I have never seen before and is certainly worth the comparatively low entrance fee.

Dinner at 360 Istanbul
I found out by chance that two of my other friends were in Istanbul so in the evening we met up at a very exclusive and nice rooftop bar called 360 for dinner and drinks. Dinner wasn’t great as it was overpriced and the quantity was small. However, the view over the city was quite spectacular. Istanbul is famous for its rooftop bars, so when you’re there it’s worth finding some bars you like. 360 is good for drinks, not necessarily dinner.

Day 2

Chora Church
The second day of sightseeing we were off to a great start – apart from the fact that the hotel receptionist advised us not to go to Chora Church but to Hagia Sophia instead. That’s the silliest advise I’ve ever heard because in my eyes the Byzantine Chora Church is perfect. That having been said, there were construction works inside which meant we could not go into the main body of the church. We were disappointed when we found out, but when we left the building we were so excited about what we saw that we didn’t even notice that something was missing.

The Narthex is main part we could visit, and it contains beautiful paintings most of them completely intact.

Süleymaniye Mosque
The Süleymaniye Mosque is the largest mosque in the city. Even though I said that the Blue Mosque is my favourite, Süleymaniye Mosque comes a very close second. Mimar Sinan designed the Mosque. The exterior of the mosque contains a courtyard and a graveyard.

The main highlight of the mosque is the outside and the inside of the building itself. The colours inside the mosque are particularly beautiful.

Day 3

Grand Bazaar
We literally ran through the Grand Bazaar. I don’t think it’s worth visiting at all. I’m used to the souks in the UAE which are much more traditional. Every five seconds we were approached by people selling things. And the worst thing is that the Bazaar itself is not pretty at all. I didn’t take any pictures, and I wish we would’ve skipped this “experience”.

Galata Tower
Galata Tower is very close to our hotel in Beyoğlu so as we were making our way back from Sultanahmet we passed by the tower and decided to go up in order to enjoy the view over Istanbul. As with all the sights in Istanbul, there was a long queue. Also when you reach the top (by elevator) you don’t get to stand still for very long because the viewpoints are very tight and there is an endless stream of people trying to take the perfect selfie. The views are worth the trip and the entrance fee though.

Istiklal Street & Leb-i Derya Bar
At the end of another long day, we walked along Istiklal Street a bit to take in the sights and to buy a few souvenirs. Suddenly we came across a gorgeous residency building, when we had a closer look we discovered it was the Dutch Embassy. This is probably one of the best looking embassies I have seen.

We were unfortunate to come across one of the famous protests along Istiklal Street, but we were fortunate enough to be having dinner in one of the side alleys at that time. We heard the noises and the shouts, but we didn’t get stuck in the stampede.

Wherever you go for drinks or food you’ll see cats chilling on the couches or chairs. There not even shy to climb all over your legs when you sit down. It’s quite cute how well cats and dogs are treated here.

The last main stop was a drink at another rooftop bar Leb-i-Derya, which is a bit difficult to find so we printed out instructions. The view over the city was again stunning and it was a perfect closure of a great holiday. I advise you to do the same if you want to make your way here.

Conclusion

This blog post was massive! It’s way more than I have ever written about a city. The reason for this is because at this point I knew I was working on a website so I was careful to write everything I experienced down in a notebook. Another reason is that Istanbul is simply gorgeous. Every single building is stunning, whether it’s a mosque, a church or a rooftop bar. I will definitely be back here one day to explore more of the city and its surroundings. Two more blog posts are on the way about this trip, both are regarding day tours. One was a Culinary Walking Tour through three districts of the city and the other is about our trip to the island Heybeliada. Stay tuned!