Hagia Sophia

The Golden Gate was the ceremonial entrance through the Theodosian city walls. After the Ottomans captured the city in 1453, Mehmed II needed a stronghold for his treasures and documents. The gate was therefore bricked up and the walls reinforced into a fortress, with valuables stored in its seven towers, hence yedi kule. In the following century the treasury moved to Topkapi Palace and the fort became a prison for high-level detainees - Osman II was strangled here in 1622. It remained in use until 1837, whereupon the Golden Gate was re-opened.

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.

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.

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 avenue has little in common with Baghdad, except it was the beginning of the Ottoman-era route to that city followed by many, including Ottoman sultan Murat IV during his march upon Persia, after which he captured Baghdad. In fact, with its sidewalk cafés and Western restaurants, Bağdat Caddesi is usually considered as one of Istanbul's most western-flavoured streets, ironically located in Asia. This street is not completely pedestrianized unlike Istiklal Street, which serves a similar function on the European Side, but its broad sidewalks with tree shade offer a pleasant walk. The restaurants and cafés on the avenue are mainly upscale, but there are also some quite affordable ones scattered around occasionally. Shopping opportunities also abound. From Kadıköy, take the Bostancı-bound dolmuşes (from just south of the ferries) or the public bus #4 (its stop is near the one for the dolmuş, but separate).

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).

The Church of Theotokos Pammakaristos ("All-Blessed Mother of God") was built between the 11th and 12th centuries. The parekklesion or side-chapel was added maybe 1300, with rich mosaics. The main building became a mosque in 1591, named for Sultan Murad III's conquest (fetih, hence Fethiye) of Georgia and Azerbaijan: the interior was opened up, but the chapel was undisturbed and in modern times became a museum. In 2020 the entire building was proclaimed a mosque, and every scrap of Byzantine artistry was covered up, so now there's nothing worth seeing.

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.

Built in 1564 by Mimar Sinan for Rüstem Pasha, Grand Vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent, this small mosque has an interior covered by beautiful Iznik pottery, then at its zenith.

Built in the early 5th century as a monastery dedicated to Saint Andrew the Apostle, in 766 it was the burial place of Saint Andrew of Crete and was later re-dedicated to him. It was rebuilt in the late 9th century and again in the 13th, then around 1490 converted into a mosque. From the 16th century it was occupied by the Dervishes, when the legend arose that a chain hung to a cypress tree in the courtyard was a truth diviner. The chain was swung between rival witnesses and the one it hit was telling the truth. The cypress stump is still standing.

Built 1748-55, this launched the style we call Ottoman Baroque, with its grand central dome and pencil-thin minarets. It was copied throughout their empire and is replicated in new mosques even today. The name means "light of the Ottomans," and the interior uses light powdery decor, bathed with much more natural light than its gloomier classical predecessors. The complex also has a madrasa and the imaret (public soup kitchen).

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.

It was built in 2001 and is the first miniature park in Istanbul (the world's largest miniature park in respect to its model area). The park hosts icons of many cultures and civilizations. Models vary from the Hagia Sophia to Galata Tower, from Safranbolu Houses to the Sumela Monastery in Trabzon, from Qubbat As-Sakhrah to the ruins of Mount Nemrut. In addition, some works that have not survived into the present, such as the Temple of Artemis, the Halicarnassus Mausoleum and Ajyad Castle, were recreated. All former Ottoman Empire in one place.

This is a 1927 Beaux Arts building named after its patron Süreyya İlmen Pasha, then a deputy of Istanbul who was impressed by theatres in Europe during his visits. It became the first opera house in the Asian side of Istanbul, but due to deficiencies in its interior design, it barely staged any opera and was converted to a cinema soon afterwards. It underwent a significant restoration and reverted to its original purpose in 2007, so now houses performances of ballet, opera, and classical music; good tickets are often extremely cheap.

The original mosque was built between 1463-1470 by the Greek architect Atik Sinan, by order of Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror, on the site of the former Church of the Holy Apostles, which had served as Byzantine Imperial burial place for a thousand years. The grand complex with eight medreses, a library, hospital, hospice, caravanserai, market, hamam, primary school and public soup kitchen was smashed again and again by earthquakes, and the present building is from 1771 to a different design. The interior is lavish, and outside is the ornate tomb of Mehmet II and his wife Gülbahar Hatun.

A resort on the Marmara coast. It's the westernmost part of Istanbul, between Çatalca and the province of Tekirdağ. There are some remnants of the Anastasian wall here, the scrappy ruins of a castle, an ancient cistern, the Piri Paşa Mosque, and Uzunköprü the long aqueduct.

Tiny house museum on the life of Turkish novelist Orhan Kemal (1914–1970).

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.

One of the icons of the city is also called the Leander's Tower, on a Bosphorus islet off Salacak. The local myth ascribes its name to a princess, whose father wanted to protect her in this offshore tower from a prophecy that she would be killed by a snakebite on her birthday, but the snake found its way inside a basket of fruits — ironically a birthday present from her father — and you've probably already guessed the rest of the story. In actual timeline, it served as a defensive structure (there was a wall connecting it to the Asian mainland, and the Byzantines used to stretch a chain from here to the European mainland across the mouth of the Bosphorus to shut it to adversary shipping in times of conflict, but they didn't during the final Ottoman siege in 1453), as a customs and quarantine station, as a lighthouse, as a warehouse of various sorts of goods, and as a high-end restaurant before the last restoration finished in 2023 dedicated it as a museum. There is a light show viewable from the mainland every day at 21:00.