12 Unmissable Things to do in Istanbul

The boat cruises slowly down the Golden Horn. In front of us, the minarets of the city’s Ottoman mosques are bathed in rose pink. As we get closer to the city centre, the muezzins’ calls to prayer sound out from the speakers attached to each of the city’s mosques, their voices mingling as they echo across the water.

Istanbul is a city unlike anywhere else. There are so many things to do in Istanbul that it can be tricky to know where to start. It’s a city of grand palaces and beautiful mosques, of spice markets and the magic of a boat trip down the Bosphorus, with Europe on one side and Asia on the other. It’s the Constantinople of the Byzantine Empire, the Istanbul of the Ottomans.

Istanbul was the ideal choice for a special one-to-one trip with my son before he started university. Here’s our guide to the best things to do in Istanbul from world famous landmarks like the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia to cheap sunset boat tours and street food, underground palaces and spice markets.

Wander around the Spice Bazaar

A trip to the spice bazaar was always going to be top of our list of things to do in Istanbul. The scents of cumin, ginger and saffron meet in the air above the colourful pyramids of spices piled up in front of each stall, with garlands of dried chillis, aubergines, tomatoes and peppers hanging above them.

There has been a spice market in Istanbul since the 17th century when it was the last stop for camel caravans travelling on the Silk Road to China and India. Alongside the spices you’ll find stalls selling teas to cure every ailment: dried rose petals and mint; teas to soothe and teas for energy; teas for stomach aches, diets and dementia. There are stalls selling nuts, incense, coffee and baklava. And then there’s the lokum, Turkish Delight as you’ve never seen it before: pomegranate, fig, pistachio, lemon and walnut in every colour of the rainbow. Wander in and you’ll be offered cups of fruit tea and samples of lokum for you to try before you buy.

The Spice Bazaar is open from 9am until 7pm every day apart from public holidays.

Take a boat trip down the Bosphorus

In Greek myth, Jason and the Argonauts rowed up the Bosphorus in search of the Golden Fleece but nowadays a seat on the top deck of a ferry is not only one of the best things to do in Istanbul but a wonderfully relaxing way to experience a section of the historic route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

The Bosphorus famously divides Europe from Asia and its shores are lines with mansions and palaces. The boats go past stone fortresses from the fifteenth century and ornate Ottoman palaces built as summer retreats.

A 90-minute round trip on a public ferry goes as far as Bosphorus Bridge, the first bridge to link Europe and Asia. Ferries depart from the pier at Eminönü and cost from as little as 75 Turkish Lira (less than £2). Arrive well before departure time to claim the best seats.

Marvel at the Hagia Sophia

No trip to Istanbul would be complete without a visit to one of the greatest buildings in the world. The Hagia Sophia has an illustrious history. Commissioned by the great Byzantine emperor, Justininian, it was the world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years. It was converted to a mosque in 1453 when Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans and the minarets were added. It was declared a museum in 1935 and became a mosque again in 2020.

It’s the most popular tourist site in Turkey and the upper galleries have recently been reopened to visitors. The gold and silver-plated mosaics are especially stunning but it’s the vast dome that makes a visit here one of the essential things to do in Istanbul. The mosaics depicting Christian icons are covered up during Muslim prayer.

The Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque is open every day from 9am until 7.30pm. Tickets cost €25; under 8s, free. Bring passports for ID. Men and women both need to cover arms and legs and women should wear a head scarf. Shoes must be taken off before entering the prayer room.

Where to find Istanbul’s best food 

Eating is an event in itself in Istanbul. On our first night we were sat outside a restaurant when a couple of waiters started loudly tapping a clay pot at a nearby table. They cracked the pot open in front of the diners and everybody clapped in delight. It was a testi kebab, an Anatolian speciality from South Eastern Turkey. That evening we ate the best kebabs of our lives, worlds away from the kind associated with post pub culture in the UK .

It’s worth going to Istanbul for the food alone. Most restaurants serve large selections of hot and cold meze dishes. Don’t miss the divine Imam Bayaldi (aubergine stuffed with tomatoes and onions), named after the Imam who passed out in ecstasy after he tried it.

Fresh fish is particularly good. Balıkçı Sabahattin has been serving fish in an old house with a vine-shaded terrace for almost a hundred years. Pandeli, a dining room above the spice market whose walls are covered with blue Iznik tiles, is even older. Audrey Hepburn, Queen Elizabeth II and Sean Connery have all been here for lunch. The Hunkar begendi, an Ottoman classic with slow cooked beef on creamy aubergine purée was so good I nearly cried.

And is there anybody who goes to Istanbul without bringing home a box or two of Turkish Delight? Lokum, as it’s called in Turkey, is sold all over the city. The piles of brightly coloured sweets come in every colour and almost every flavour you can think of.

Walk around the harem at Topkapi Palace

The Ottoman sultans lived in the Topkapı Palace for around 400 years and one of the highlights of a visit here is the chance to walk around the large harem where the sultan’s mother, wives and mistresses lived in a closed world where no men were allowed other than the sultan, his sons and their African eunuch guards.

Walk down the Courtyard of the Concubines, into the Sultan’s marble bathroom and the opulently decorated salons belonging to the Sultan’s mother. As the most powerful woman in the palace, she had the best rooms in the harem.

The palace itself is beautiful. Entire rooms are decorated in Iznik tiles and the marble terraces, elaborate gates, landscaped courtyards and throne room all emphasise the opulence of the Ottoman Empire. Be sure to visit the Treasury where you can see jewel encrusted daggers and an 86-carat diamond, one of the largest in the world.

The Pavilion of the Holy Mantle contains some of Islam’s holiest relics including the Holy Mantle, a cloak worn by the Prophet Mohammed, hairs from the prophet’s beard as well as his daggers and one of his teeth. There are also relics of Abraham, Joseph, Moses and King David. The Pavilion is an important place of pilgrimage for Muslims so expect long queues to get in.

Topkapi Palace is open from 9am until 6pm every day except Tuesday. Tickets for entry to the palace and harem cost 1,700 Turkish Lira (about £38). The ticket price includes an audio guide which requires you to leave your passport as a deposit.

Admire the Ottoman architecture at the Süleymaniye Mosque

For some of the loveliest views over the city, head up the hill to the Süleymaniye Mosque where there are gorgeous views over the Golden Horn from the terraced gardens. The mosque itself is considered to be the greatest of Istanbul’s imperial mosques and its four minarets dominate the Istanbul skyline.

The mosque’s interior is simpler than that of the more ornate Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia but its marble exterior is just stunning. After your visit be sure to explore the narrow streets surrounding the mosque as there are some interesting examples of Ottoman timber houses.

Süleymaniye Mosque is open every day from 8.30 until 4.45pm (it closes at 1.30pm on Fridays). The mosque is free to enter but closed at prayer times.

Go underground into the Basilica Cistern

One of the most unusual things to do in Istanbul is a visit to its most extraordinary sight, the ‘sunken palace’, an ancient Byzantine cistern built in 532 so that Constantinople could always be supplied with water.

Steps lead visitors down into the vast underground space made eerily beautiful by the 336 marble and granite columns, many salvaged from ruined classical temples. Walkways lead through the water and lights alternately change colour and leave you in the dark, adding to the atmosphere and making a visit here an experience not to be missed.

There are Medusa heads at the base of two of the columns. They were turned upside down so that the Gorgon’s power to turn viewers to stone wouldn’t work. A further column is engraved with shapes that look like tears – some historians say that these commemorate the hundreds of slaves who died during the construction of the cistern.

The Basilica Cistern is open every day from 9am until 11.50pm. Tickets, 990 Turkish Lira (until 6.30pm). Under 7s, free.

Visit the Blue Mosque

It’s one of the most famous buildings in the world, known as the Blue Mosque because of the thousands of blue Iznik tiles that line the domes. Its official name is the Sultan Ahmet Mosque after the sultan who commissioned this beautiful building with six minarets, stained glass windows and multiple domes. The sultan died, aged just 27, only one year after the mosque was finished. His tomb is in the mosque alongside his wife and three sons all of whom where strangled to death after Ahmet died.

There are daily prayer services at the Blue Mosque for practising muslims. The mosque is free to visit outside prayer times but visitors must remove their shoes and women should wear a headscarf over their head and shoulders.

Get lost in the crowds of the Grand Bazaar

The heart of Istanbul is still in the Grand Bazaar in the centre of the Old City, where crowds have been coming to bargain and buy for over five centuries. The streets of the bazaar are named after the goods originally sold here: silk thread makers, skullcap makers, mirror makers and slipper makers.

Wandering along the tiny lanes surrounding the covered market is an experience like no other – you’ll find dried sheep heads, lamps, carpets, colourful bowls and gold sold by weight.

When you need a respite from the noise and the crowds, head for one of the cafés down the side streets where you can drink glasses of fresh mint tea for a couple of pennies on stools set up next to tables of upturned boxes covered in cloth.

Discover Eyüp by ferry and cable car

You can pay a lot of money for a sunset cruise so we were feeling a bit smug as our boat motored slowly down the Golden Horn at sunset – our tickets cost less than 20 pence each. On the top deck of our ferry a man walked past with a tray offering cay (glasses of strong black tea) and orange juice and the muezzins’ call to prayer rang out from the city’s mosques as the sun went down.

A boat up the Golden Horn is the best way to visit the Eyüp Sultan Mosque and was one of our favourite things to do in Istanbul. It’s one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in Islam as it was built around the tomb of the seventh century saint who was the Prophet Mohammed’s standard bearer.

After a visit to the mosque take the cable car up the hill and ride above hundreds of Ottoman era gravestones in the cemetery below. At the top, head for the terrace of the Pierre Loti Café for the best views over the Golden Horn.

A ferry up the Golden Horn costs around 7.5 Turkish Lira (about 20 pence). Ferries leave regularly for Eyüp from Eminönü and take about 35 minutes.

See Turkey’s Versailles at the Dolmabahçe Palace

This ostentatious palace on the shores of the Bosphorus is so opulent that it almost bankrupted the treasury when it was built in the 19th century. The sultan wanted a European-style palace to rival the Palace of Versailles and the state apartments were designed by the Frenchman responsible for the Paris Opéra. They’re wonderfully theatrical and over-the-top with an ornate crystal staircase, mirrored fireplaces and the world’s largest chandelier in the Ceremonial Hall. The crystal chandelier weighs 4.5 tonnes and was a gift to the Sultan from Queen Victoria.

Turkey’s first president, Ataturk, used the palace as his Istanbul base at the beginning of the 20th century and he died here in 1938. All the palace clocks are set to the time of his death and visitors can see the bedroom where he died.

Dolmabahçe Palace is open from Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am until 4pm. Tickets cost £43.82 per person (online) for a skip-the-line ticket including audio guides and a guided tour for the first 15 minutes after your arrival; under 6s, free. Don’t forget to bring your passport for ID.

Explore Beyoğlu, the other side of Istanbul

From the Spice Market it’s just a short walk to the famous waterway called the Golden Horn. There is a constant flow of pedestrians and trams crossing the Galata Bridge. Fishermen trail their lines into the water, street vendors sell fake watches, corn on the cob and fish sandwiches. the cafés on the lower level of the bridge serve beers and nargile (water pipes) to customers waiting for their ferries or taking in one of the best views of the city especially at sunset.

Climb up the Galata Tower for another great view of the city. The tower was built by the Genoese in the 14th century. Then climb up the steep hill from Karaköy or take the funicular – an adventure in itself on one of the oldest underground trains in the world – to explore Beyoğlu, the heart of modern European Istanbul, an area familiar to readers of Elif Shafak’s powerful novel set in the neighbourhood, ’10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World’.

Istiklal Caddesi is Istanbul’s Oxford Street, a pedestrianised shopping street. Watch out for the distinctive red tram that runs along the entire length. Other areas worth exploring are the bohemian backstreets in Çukurcuma where you’ll find antique shops, arty cafés and historic mansions.

Galata Tower is open every day from 8.30am until 10pm (winter) or 11pm (summer). Tickets cost €30.

Getting Around

It’s cheap and easy to travel around Istanbul by tram. Services run every five minutes from 6am until midnight. You can buy ticket tokens from the machines at every tram stop but you’ll save money by buying a rechargeable Istanbulkart which can be recharged at ferry docks, metro and bus stations and can be used on most trams, ferries, buses and metro services.

Don’t miss a trip on the funicular between Karaköy and Istiklal Caddesi in Beyoglu. The Tünel is the second oldest underground train in the world (after the London Underground).

You can travel along Istanbul’s waterways by ferry. The main dock at Eminönü has departures up the Golden Horn and along the Bosphorus.

Where to Stay

It’s a good idea to base yourself in Sultanahmet, the historic city centre, with the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and Grand Bazaar all within an easy walking distance.

We stayed in the fabulous boutique hotel, Ibrahim Pasha, located in a couple of late 19th-century townhouses near the historic hippodrome. After a long day’s sightseeing we’d climb up to the roof terrace for mint tea, Turkish Delight and incredible views over the Blue Mosque and the minarets and domes of Istanbul as the sun went down.

For more city guides, take a look at The Best Things to do in Paris With Kids, the Essential Guide to Venice and How to Ace New York with Tweens.