Crimea Memorial Church

Turkey was slow to protect its antiquities and to display them properly, but in 1867 Sultan Abdülaziz toured the museums of Paris, London and Vienna and saw what was needed. The main collection is in a grand neo-classical building of 1891, with two annexes for ancient art and Islamic art. Exhibits include Sumerian tablets, pieces of the wall of Babylon, Roman statues, and the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great, which he never lay in.

If you are already in the area, it's worth considering to visit this waterside neo-Baroque manor, built in the 19th century for the countryside and hunting excursions of the Ottoman dynasty. The area, where the Göksu River flows into the Bosphorus, was known as "the Sweet Waters of Asia" by the pioneer European travellers of the epoch (as opposed to "the Sweet Waters of Europe", another contemporary elite recreational area on the other side of the city, where the Kağıthane and Alibeyköy Rivers empty into the Golden Horn).

A profusion of carpets, rugs, calligraphy, pottery, Qu'rans and other manuscripts. The museum is housed in the Palace of Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha (1495–1536), who was grand vizier to Suleiman the Magnificent, and the best of pals till Suleiman had him murdered.

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.

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.

Sokollu Mehmet Pasha was the grand vizier and de facto ruler of the Ottoman Empire during its 16th century golden age. He commissioned this mosque, one of three in the city to bear his name, but the sloping site was a challenge. He hired the best, Mimar Sinan, who completed it in 979 AH / 1571 AD, with the slope resolved by a fronting courtyard above shops and a medrese. The interior has outstanding İznik blue tiles, and three fragments of the Black Stone (Hajar al-Aswad) of the Kaaba: above the main entrance, minbar and mihrab.

Completed in 1851, this houses a mantle said to have been worn by the prophet Muhammad. The mantle is displayed during Ramadan.

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

Started in 1613 by the Ottoman sultan Ahmet I (r. 1603–1617, who also had the Blue Mosque in the Old City built), and extensively renovated by the art-loving Selim III (r. 1789–1807), this sole building, which itself has the distinction of being the only intact structure that dates back to the rule of Ahmet III (r. 1703–1730), set inside a beautiful garden of pools and mature cedar and magnolia trees is the only remaining part of what was once the fourth largest palatial complex in Istanbul, extending all the way to the banks of the Golden Horn (which is now occupied by the derelict buildings of the closed shipyard, which also block part of the view towards the shore). According to the local rumour, its name (which in Turkish means "mirrored poplar") derives from the now absent mirrors gifted by Venice to the palace that were presumably "as tall as the poplars" (aynalar kavak). The highly decorative and colourful interior includes several rooms of original furnitures fit for a sultan, some of which are covered with nacre, and walls embellished with Ottoman poems praising the palace and Selim III. Downstairs is a small museum dedicated to music, which exhibit some of the instruments (violins, ouds, and kamanchehs) and gramophone records owned by Fatma Gevheri Sultana (1904–1980), the granddaughter of Abdülaziz I (r. 1861–1876). While you are outside, also check out the old main entrance (now closed) towards the Golden Horn, topped by a dome. Worth the half hour spent there.

The only active Ashkenazi Synagogue open to visits and prayers.

The building was erected as a Roman Catholic church in 1325 by the friars of the Dominican Order, near or above an earlier chapel dedicated to Saint Paul (Italian: San Paolo) in 1233. In 1299, the Dominican Friar Guillaume Bernard de Sévérac bought a house near the church, where he established a monastery with 12 friars. A new, much larger church was built near or above the chapel of San Paolo in 1325. Thereafter the church was officially dedicated to San Domenico. After the Fall of Constantinople, according to the Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire with the Republic of Genoa, the church, which by that time was known by the Turks under the name of Mesa Domenico, remained in Genoese hands, but between 1475 and 1478 it was transformed, with minor modifications, into a mosque by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and became known as Galata Camii ("Galata Mosque") or Cami-i Kebir ("Great Mosque"). Towards the end of the century Sultan Bayezid II assigned the building to those Muslims of Spain (Andalusia) who had fled the Spanish Inquisition and migrated to Istanbul; hence the present name Arap Camii (Arab Mosque). Today, Arap Camii is the largest mosque on the Galata side of the Golden Horn. It is one of the most interesting mosques in the city due to its early Italian Gothic architectural style and church belfry, which has practically remained unaltered even after being converted into a minaret.

Built in first half of the 15th century, this is the large medieval castle under the Second Bosphorus Bridge. Its former name Boğazkesen (Turkish)/Laimokopia (Greek) means both "strait-blocker" and "throat-cutter" in both languages and denotes the reason of its building—to shut the supply routes from the Black Sea in the north into the slowly falling apart Byzantine Empire through the Bosphorus. Rumeli, literally "the Roman land", was the name of the European half of the Ottoman Empire, and as is usual with some other structures and villages along the Bosphorus, used as a prefix to differentiate Rumeli Hisarı from its counterpart in the Asian Side, the much smaller Anadolu Hisarı just across the Bosphorus.

This lavish palace with 285 rooms and 43 halls was the admin centre for the Ottoman Empire in its last 60 years. The palace government block (Selamlık) includes the Imperial Mabeyn (State Apartments) and Muayede Hall (Ceremonial Hall), while the Imperial Harem was the sultan's private quarters. Also here are the Painting Gallery, Music Museum, Clock Museum and Museum of Palace Collections. Free audio guide in several languages available by the ticket office. No photography inside, no backpacks but you can leave them in the cloakroom. Allow 3 hours to see everything.

A charming domed church built in 1880 at the side of Taksim Square, now uneasily contesting with Taksim Mosque for being the main landmark of the southern edge of the square.

The imperial enclave of the Ottoman emperors for four centuries. Lavishly decorated, with exhibitions of fine craftmanship and four courts of increasing grandeur. The second court has the Harem and the State Treasury, housing a weaponry display. The third court has the Imperial Treasury, with Islamic and Christian relics. The views from the Fourth Court over the Bosphorus are spectacular. Reckon on spending several hours here and bring water as the museum kiosk is overpriced.

A ritual dancing hall of the mystical Mevlevi order, the followers of the teachings of Mewlānā Rumi. The quiet and peaceful garden is a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of Beyoğlu. The oldest Mevlevi lodge in Istanbul, the convent was started in 1491, when the surrounding area was, hard to believe today but, pure wilderness beyond the city walls of Galata, although the current building dates back to 1855, as the older versions succumbed to repairs, rebuildings, and fires. However, the lodge was shut down in the early years of the republic (in 1925) along with all other 'reactionary' movements in Turkey, and the building has been serving as a museum dedicated to the Mevlevi order since 2010. Downstairs is a series of rooms dealing with the daily life of an average dervish, with informational signs in Turkish and English about the history of Islam and the Mevlevi order (also notice the original wooden pillars that support the building on this floor). On the upper floor is a dancing hall, a perfect example of 19th century Ottoman Baroque. Pre-Covid, this was where the sema whirling ceremonies were held every weekend evenings (admission by an extra ticket costing around 100 TL); check if they resumed. On the third floor is a display of various traditional Turkish/Islamic arts, including paper marbling (ebru), and calligraphy. After exiting the building, check out the small graveyard (or the "silent house" as the sign at its entrance says) on one side of the building, shaded by a number of hackberry trees, which Ottomans favoured to plant in the yards of mosques and graves to sign holiness. Here, the carved fez, or the basket of flowers in case of women, perched upon the highly detailed marble gravestone indicates the occupant's rank in the dervish hierarchy. At one corner of the necropolis is the grave of İbrahim Müteferrika, a converted Hungarian who was the first to start automated publishing in Ottoman Turkish in the 18th century, and served as the translator of Hungarian revolutionaries who sought asylum in Turkey, such as Kossuth, who stayed for a year in Kütahya, or Ferenc Rakoczi, who lived his last years in Tekirdağ.

Museum in a restored building that was the stables for Topkapı Palace. It exhibits various instruments for astronomy, clocks, pumps, weaponry and so on developed in Islamic realms down the centuries, but these are modern repro, and explanations of their context are skimpy. Islamic science and technology preceded that of Europe, as they insist, but they get the tone wrong, as if that was the triumphal culmination rather than the springboard for further advance.

This attractive neighbourhood was home to a large Christian and Jewish population until some decades ago and still has a number of sights like two synagogues, some churches among which the Armenian Surp Krikor Lusavoriç, dozens of wooden houses and a Jewish and Christian cemetery.