Using again the national holiday we managed to go for 4 days to Istanbul for a long weekend. As always we tried to get as much time as possible at the spot by flying on Wednesday evening after work and coming back on Sunday late afternoon. Due to the bad weather we were a little bit sceptical about the city at the beginning, but after full 4 days I can recommend it without any hesitation!

Below you can find guide on the top destinations and food as well as our itinerary for visiting Istanbul. It’s quite intensive, but it will allow you to visit almost whole city in a very short time. If you want to get more details on when to visit, what are the prices or how to travel around – visit this page: FAQ – Istanbul travel

Why you should go to Istanbul?

The most important city of eastern Rome, part of of Ottoman empire and nowadays capital of Turkey. Istanbul was one of the most important cities in Europe throughout it’s whole history and you can see it in many top-tier historic sites. But you can also see that this city does not live in the past and you can do much more in the buzzing atmosphere of this metropolis – amazing restaurants, nice bars, cruises on Bosphorus and much more. This city has many faces and all of them are worth discovering! 

Top destinations in Istanbul

• Visit the 3 most important mosques – Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque and Suleyman Mosque.

• Enjoy amazing food in one of the many restaurants. I can recommend few of them (Balkon, Karaköy Gümrük), but the best place for food is still Taksim square with its amazing “wet burgers” (burgers which were put in the tomato sauce). They are absolutely amazing! And if you like sweets then you should head to “Mado” – Turkish delights there are something that comes from a different planet!

• Walk around hipster “Karakoy” and enjoy shops, art and nice restaurant in one district that would outshine many of the Western European cities!

Best things to eat

To be honest everything we ate in Istanbul was super tasty. But few things really stood out:

• Kebab. And I’m not talking about Kebab places with rather fast food quality which we know from Europe. In Istanbul you can eat Kebab also in much better restaurants and then it’s super tasty. We ate one in Balkon restaurant. As a bonus you will get nice view over the city from that place.
• Turkish breakfast. Breakfasts are quite a big thing in Turkey. According to my friend it may take even few hours of constant flow of food. Before coming to Turkey I heard many times that the most important things is to eat proper Turkish breakfast there. My friend took us to DOĞACIYIZ GOURMET, which was completely awesome! You will be served with many small dishes that you can try. Marinated walnut was something I will remember for a long time!

• Turkish delights. You probably know Baklava. But in Turkey there is much more good sweets! We couldn’t stop ourselves from eating them. We can recommend chain “Mado” – they have really good choice there. My favourite one was Kunefe (even tough it’s more Arabic) – try it in different versions!

Few important information about Istanbul

It’s the only capital in the world that is located on two continents. Partially in Europe, partially in Asia – you can see influence of both worlds. Food, architecture and religion has more in common with Arabic world, but the organisation, interesting bars and hipster places makes you feel like in Western European capital.Istanbul was one of the most important political, economic and strategic point in Europe throughout its whole history. Known at the beginning as Byzantium in Roman Empire, it became its eastern capital in 330 AC and later on capital of the separated Eastern Roman Empire. After the fall of Western Roman Empire, Byzantium (at that time known already as Constantinople) became one of the richest and most populated cities in Europe. This state lasted throughout middle ages, until crusaders invaded the city and broke the power of Byzantium empire. Even tough later restored, Byzantium never came back to the same level of power. That was used by Turkish Ottomans who conquered the city in 1453 and established Ottoman Empire that replaced Byzantium. Also since that time city started to be known more as “Istanbul” than “Constantinople”.It’s really hard to understand how Turkish people perceive Ottoman Empire. From European perspective we put sign of equality between Ottomans and Turkey, but if you talk with Turkish people, they treat establishing of Republic of Turkey on the ruins of Ottoman Empire as moment of gaining independence. It may be because Ottomans were not really Turkish – Sultan was getting married to one of the girls from his harem. As harem consisted with the most beautiful girls from all over the empire, most of the times they were not Turkish. Therefore, with each generation of Sultans Turkish origins were less and less present.The reason why Istanbul was always important, populated and rich is its perfect location – it’s a gate for black see and the main route for trade between India, China and Europe. Before geographic discoveries those who controlled Istanbul were the ones to control inflow and outflow of goods to Europe. Together with controlling access to Europe on military basis, Istanbul location was determining its destiny as one of the most important points in Europe.Location of the city determines also its interesting structure. Having Bosphorus in the middle and river dividing European in the half, you can easily distinguish 3 parts of the city with water in the middle. Underwater metro (Marmaris line), bridges and ferries are crucial for everyday communication within the city. It looks completely different than any other European city as when you are in the middle you see mainly river and sea  instead of one historic centre / market.

Itinerary

Day 0: landing in Istanbul in the late evening
Day 1: Aya Sophia, Basilica cistern, Blue mosque, Grand Bazar & Spice market, Sulleymaniye Mosque, Galata bridge, Karakoy, Galata tower
Day 2: Topkapi palace, Kadikoy, Taksim square, Ortakoy mosque, Arnavutkoy
Day 3: Turkish breakfast, Dolmabahçe Palace, Day trip Bosphorus Hop On & Hop Off
Day 4: Chora Church (Kariye Müzesi), flight back

Day 1

Second iconic mosque of Istanbul. It was more interesting to see than Aya Sophia as it’s not so common for me to go to mosque inside. However, again most of the celling was being renovated, so we couldn’t really see why they call this place “Blue”. Positive is that you don’t need tickets to enter.

Grand Bazar & Spice market
Old markets, where you can buy a lot of things – Turkish sweets, souvenirs, food, clothing and much more. To be honest, we didn’t find it especially interesting. There is variety of things, but after you will buy one or two, the rest seems quite repeatable. I would rather compare it to the normal local market than to something astonishing I know from Chatuchak in Bangkok. Of course some people are fan of such places so for them it is worth visiting, but rest will not spend long time  here. Out of these two, I enjoyed Spice market a little bit more.

Sulleymaniye Mosque
Third of the most iconic mosques in Istanbul. It looks quite similar to Blue Mosque, but the view on the city is much better from Sulleymaniye Mosque. In the neighbourhood there are a lot of rooftop cafes and restaurants from which you can see city, river and Bosphorus.

Galata bridge
Two level bridge that connects two sides of European part of Istanbul. It’s quite long and walking on the lower level is quite fun. Interesting thing is that many people will be standing on the upper floor and do fishing. After they will catch the fish they will either bring it home or grill it directly at the spot.  I have never seen something like this in any European city and at the beginning it was hard to distinguish if those people are doing it to save some money or they just like it. After some explanation from my friend, I know it’s  fortunately the second reason 🙂

Karakoy
One of my favourite parts of Istanbul. Very hipster place, full of nice and interesting bars and restaurants as well as some art shops. You could feel like you are in the middle of Amsterdam in many moments. Going around is super cool and it’s a good spot to eat dinner. As I wrote above, we chose restaurant Balkon, from which we had nice view on the city.

Galata tower
I think it’s the most famous landmark of Istanbul. You can find it on many cups, t-shirts, magnets and other souvenirs. You can enter the tower and go to the top to see panoramic view of the city. There is quite a long line there, but you have to wait in it as there is no option to book tickets in advance. Reason why the line is so long is bad organisation – at the top people go in both directions so it’s super hard to walk around. But it’s really worth it – the view is really nice. Remember that you need cash as they don’t accept cards there!

Day 2

Topkapi palace (#111 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
The last place from Istanbul which made to 500 list. During early ages of Ottoman Empire this was the place where Sultans were living (later on they move to the different location). When you go inside, it’s really worth to take audio-guide as otherwise it will be hard to get what you are looking at. And it’s also worth to buy tickets to Harem – for me it was the most interesting part of the palace. We were quite surprised to find out that concept of Harem as a place where only ruler with his family had access was known in so many different parts of the world – Harem in Turkey, Purple city in Vietnam, Forbidden city in China. Overall, Topkapi is an interesting spot, worth visiting, but do not expect any fireworks.Important note – usually there are long lines to enter the palace. Therefore it’s good to come in the morning to avoid standing in the line – we were few minutes before 9 as at this hour palace opens. There are also guys that try to sell “fast track” tickets, but personally I wouldn’t trust them. As far as I know, it’s also impossible to book tickets in advance.Close to Topkapi palace there is archeological museum. We did it day before, there were some nice parts, but generally nothing will happen if you will skip it.

Kadikoy
We decided to go to the Asian side of Istanbul as we felt that without it our sightseeing of the city wouldn’t be complete. We decided to go Kadikoy as it’s quite famous with its local food market.We had some problems to get to the other side of Bosphorus as we went to wrong ferry station. At the end we just took metro under the water – so called “Marmaris” line. It was really fast way to get to the other side, especially if you compare few minutes of ride to more than half hour ride on the boat on the way back to Karakoy. Of course, the boat back was much more fun so I really encourage you to take one, especially because it’s part of the public transportation system in Istanbul, so it’s quite cheap.Kadikoy made really good impression  on us. It is very modern part of the city and the local market was quite cool, even tough it’s just 2 streets of shops with food. But the nicest part was the coffee place we found there – it was the best coffee we had in Istanbul (mainly because we found out that you cannot just skip sugar in Turkish coffee as we had done in the previous places).

Taksim square
If you follow news you probably know name of Taksim square. It’s the place where the political protests were taking place before Turkish government forced them to stop. Nowadays Taksim square is still the soul of Istanbul, but as a tourists you won’t have a lot to see there. Except of course wet burgers, which I described above!

Ortakoy mosque
On the way to meet my friend in Arnavtukoy we stopped for a second to see Ortakoy mosque, but unfortunately there was no chance to see it inside (we were quite late). Nearby we also found centre of all Kumpirs in the world, but we also didn’t have time to eat there. For information – Kumpir is a type of baked potato with filling.

Arnavutkoy
We got there for “Raki evening” (I described it above), but the whole district is full of different bars and clubs. I was quite surprised, but you can see rooftop bars all over the neighbourhood, which are filled in with people drinking alcohol. It’s first time I saw something like this in country, where Islam is the most popular religion. If you have moment, I really encourage you to come there one evening!

Saturday

Turkish breakfast
I described it already above, but it’s really worth to spend one morning to experience it!

Dolmabahçe Palace
After the breakfast we went to the last residence of Ottomans. It is quite cool inside, but unfortunately it is forbidden to take pictures. Especially last room of the palace is very impressive and we completely didn’t expect something like this! So if you have time – go there!

Day trip Bosphorus Hop On & Hop Off
It’s cruise trip that you can take to see both sides of Bosphorus. It works in the way that you buy ticket once and then you can hop off and hop on the next boat at one of the few stops on the way. Unfortunately, we started our trip quite late, so some of the places we couldn’t visit anymore. At the end we hopped off only once and mainly to eat something. Nevertheless, it was still worth to make this trip – it allowed us to see completely different side of Istanbul. Especially interesting were all the rich houses on the Asian side of Bosphorus. We could easily see that there are many very rich people in the city.

Below you can see the route and timetable of the ferry (please take into account that it may have changed since May 2018). We started at Dolmabahçe Palace, and hopped off at Kucuksu Pavilion. I think that if we would have more time, we would probably visit Anadolu castle and Beylerbeyi Palace.

By the way – it’s also possible to take the ferry around river in the European part, but we decided to skip it due to the lack of time and fact that we already walked quite a lot in that area.

Karakoy bars
After the ferry we ate at a very nice restaurant – Karaköy Gümrük (I really recommend it!) and headed to Karakoy. We ended up in some kind of partying centre, full of super nice bars, restaurants and clubs. In the warm evening it’s the best place to chill with your friends. If you will manage to find some empty table of course! Below you can find approximate location of that area:

Sunday

Chora Church (Kariye Müzesi)
We left this old orthodox church for the end of our trip as we didn’t expect a lot from it. But surprisingly, it turned out to be really interesting museum and even tough many parts were under renovation, rest of the frescos was making great impression. It’s really worth visiting, so don’t skip it! Also the way to museum was quite nice – on Sunday many streets were closed for cars and people were sitting in nice bars on the way.

We also used remaining time on Sunday to walk a little bit on European side of the city. Thanks to the  sun, we re-discovered many places that we didn’t really like during first days when the weather was not so nice!

Summing up
It was quite interesting trip as things that we expected to be the most interesting (Topkapi palace, Aya Sofia) were just ok, but many things we didn’t know that even exist turned out to be stars of this city (Karakoy, Kadikoy, wet burgers). Overall, it was very good trip (also thanks to the sun which appeared in the second part of the stay) and I’m quite sure that I will be back in Turkey sooner or later!