Ashkenazi Synagogue of Istanbul

From Bahçeköy village, follow the road into Belgrad Forest towards Kemerburgaz for 10 mins. The arboretum, surrounded by a natural oak forest, is planted with many non-native tree species (many turning crimson/golden/purple as winter approaches) and has a pond with feisty ducks. It's an almost mystic place during hazy autumn days, but is always very scenic no matter what the season. Watch for migratory birds in autumn. No eating, no picnicking, no video photography and no smoking.

A neighbourhood east of Şişli known for its Art Nouveau apartment buildings, the ground floors of many of which are upmarket restaurants, cafes, pubs, and garment stores lining the sidewalks. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, well-known Turkish novelist, is a lifelong resident of the neighbourhood which formed the background of several of his novels.

A remarkable Bulgarian Orthodox church better known as Demir Kilise, "Iron Church", as it's a cast iron prefab. The Bulgarians split from the Greek Orthodox and established their own wooden church in 1870, which burned down. The ground was too weak for a masonry or concrete structure so they opted for cast iron. The sections were cast in Vienna, shipped here and assembled, to open in 1898. The church was renovated in 2018, but the archpatriarchate building across the street remains a gaunt shell.

A medieval citadel on the Bosphorus at the mouth of the Göksu creek. It was built in the late 14th century to control (polite word for "choke off") shipping along the Bosphorus, which narrows to 660 m at this point. It worked in tandem with Rumeli Citadel, built some 50 years later on the European bank. It fell into disrepair but was restored in the 1990s. You can't go in, but it's a pleasant setting; the entire village is named Anadolu Hisarı after the fort and has many traditional wooden houses (yalı). Ferries along the Bosphorus call here.

Built circa 1200 as the Eastern Orthodox Theotokos Kyriotissa Church, after the Ottoman conquest it was handed over to the Qalandari, a Sufi sect. In the mid-18th century it was converted to a Sunni mosque, and its mosaics were plastered over. The original appearance was restored in the 1970s.

A Byzantine monastery complex carved into a cliff, set in a lush valley. The site is free, but May-Sept there's a 32 TL toll for cars on the access roads. There's a picnic area, pity about all the trash, and a couple of restaurants nearby.

This is a completely wooden building rising up to six storeys. It is said to be the second largest wooden construction in the world and the first in Europe. On the second highest summit of Büyükada (İsatepe, "Jesus hill", 164 m asl), it lies abandoned and dilapidated amidst the pine woods, like a picture-perfect haunted manor. It was built in the late 19th century, originally intended as a luxury hotel for the passengers of the Orient Express but never served that purpose and was put in use as an orphanage by the Greek community until it was closed down in 1964, within the context of the deteriorating Turkish-Greek relations due to the Cyprus dispute. It's dangerous, not to say forbidden, to enter the building due to the damages inflicted by decades of neglect. The title holder is the Ecumenical Patriarchate, led by Bartholomew I who wants the building restored and made a global environmental research centre (he's known as the "Green Pope" due to his efforts for environmental protection), but given the long legal disputes on titleship, not to mention the enormous funds required to bring the building to life, don't hold your breath.

Situated on the gentle hill overlooking the neighbourhood of Emirgan and the Bosphorus, Emirgan Park was for long the only place in the city where Istanbulites can admire the beauty of tulips. Having lost that distinction since the first decade of the 2000s as tulips are now everywhere, this is still a beautiful park with artificial ponds, small waterfalls, and impressive views of the Bosphorus. There are also cafes with open-air sections housed in pleasant former imperial hunting manors. Squirrels are there, too, in the middle of this metropolis of more than 15 million people, though you may have to look a bit deeper (or a bit upper on the branches!) to spot them.

Dedicated to toys, this is a museum which adults can enjoy as much as kids. It's founded by poet Sunay Akın, and is housed in a historical mansion in the Göztepe neighbourhood east of Kadıköy. Among the 2,000 pieces of toys from around the world in exhibition, the oldest are a French-made violin from 1817 and a U.S.-made doll from 1820.

Stretching west from the park is this impressive 16th-century stone bridge with four humps and 28 arches spanning the channel between lagoon and sea. The bridge is pedestrian only and offers some very nice views, so it's worth walking across the entire (breezy!) span via the three islets to the quiet western end, even though beyond is industrial gap site, with the modern highway roaring to the south. In the park, the pillbox menacing the bridge was part of the "Çakmak Line", the World War II fortifications stretching from here to Terkos, which were Istanbul's last line of defence from the west. The pillbox exterior is colourfully decorated but the interior is closed.

A historic house museum dedicated to the life of Adam Mickiewicz, renowned Polish poet. This is where he lived while in Turkey from September 1855 to 26 November 1855, when he died of illness.

Chora means countryside, and when built as a monastery in the 4th century it stood outside the Constantine walls; a century later, it was incorporated into the Theodosian walls. It was rebuilt in the 11th century then wrecked by an earthquake, so the structure and fabulous mosaics you see now are 14th century. When the church was converted to a mosque in 1500 the mosaics were plastered over, and only restored in 1958 when it became a museum. In 2020 it was again proclaimed a mosque but here (unlike Fethiye Mosque) they saw the sense and tourist income of preserving the mosaics. You need to work around prayer times.

A nice, organized museum with contemporary installations. It may be seen as overpriced given its small size. It also has a simple cafe.

Feshane began as a factory producing fezzes (fes), the red hats made of felt adopted by the Ottomans in the early 19th century as a part of westernizing efforts in lieu of much more traditional turbans. However, the fez was scrapped in favour of western garments during Atatürk's reforms of the 1920s and 30s as it was thought to symbolize the old, decidedly oriental regime. A restoration in 1998 made it a cultural and exhibition center, and after another in 2023, it was reopened as a culture and art center under the name Artistanbul Feshane.

A village with an impressive citadel overlooking the Bosphorus and its mouth into the Black Sea. By land it's accessible only by a hairpinning road through the forest, with few buses. It's best reached by ferry from Eminönü (twice daily) or Sariyer (frequent). In the village, a road is signposted up to the hilltop Yoros citadel (a little more than 1 km, 20 min on foot, free admission). There's a pleasant area with cafés by the ferry pier; the place gets crowded at weekends during summer. Nasty big dogs stalk the citadel area at night. See Istanbul#The_classic_Bosphorus_cruise.

It has a sandy beach backed by forest where a creek runs out. This is as far as you can go in a standard car.

A former synagogue, the museum's exhibit details how the cultures mixed with and influenced each other in the past 500+ years since the Spanish expulsion.

Istanbul's former Asia-side railway station nowadays has no trains, but is worth a look. It was built by the Germans in 1908 in a distinctive Teutonic-castle style - to make an impact on travellers from Asia about to step into Europe, and a counterpoint to Sirkeci station (also closed) on the European side which is modelled in Oriental style. It's intended eventually to make this the terminus for the high speed rail network.

The Greek Orthodox church is on the highest summit of the archipelago, Yücetepe ("great hill") at 203 m asl. Walk up from Birlik Meydanı for about 35-40 min; the cobbled incline is too steep for a bicycle. The church building is unexceptional, but the backyard has a great view of the other islands and the sea. St George's day is celebrated here annually on Apr 23, when you can expect tens of thousands attendees willing to make wishes — if you want to skip the crowds set off before 06:00 or else you will be standing for a long time until you are let inside by the police in groups of 10–15 people at once. Wishmaking rituals range from usual candle burning, to slightly more unusual climbing up to the church on bare feet, to very curious untying wool balls all along the path leading there. If you are interested to partake, you will meet lots of vendors selling candles on the streets that day, right as soon as you step out of the ferry, but it's best to have them from the church for a donation. In case you are wondering if all of Turkey's dwindled Greek Orthodox minority are there that day, or if the community is even that populous, no, most of the visitors eagerly waiting for a blessing from the priest are non-Christian Turks, but there is nothing surprising about that: this is Turkey, where the east and the west meet, and cultures truly mix.

A private museum with a large painting collection and archaeological collections of measurement units and tools used in Asia Minor since antiquity and faiences of Kütahya.