Hirka-i Serif Mosque

Built as the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus around 530 AD, the same time as Hagia Sophia, but their styles differ. Transformed into a mosque in the early 1500s, it's beautifully decorated, with fine marble details, and has a pleasanter atmosphere than the larger busy mosques. The adjoining madrasa houses craft shops.

An attractive stairway mixing the Neo-Baroque and early Art Nouveau styles, climbing up from Bankalar St towards the Galata Tower. It was built in the 1870s by Abraham Salomon Camondo, who belonged to a prominent Ottoman-Venetian Jewish family of financiers and philanthropists.

It was built by the Genoese in the 14th century on the city walls of Galata, marking the highest point of their territory. Ride an elevator and take two flights of stairs to the top, then walk the parapet for a 360°-view of Istanbul, including the entire Sultanahmet peninsula: crowned by Topkapı Palace, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. A beautiful spot worthy of a lot of pictures.

This is a triple structure: the church of the Monastery of Pantokrator built 1118, then a public church circa 1136 plus a chapel that served as a royal mausoleum. It became a mosque and medresse in Ottoman times, but without massive alteration so it's a prime example of middle-Byzantine architecture. It's nowadays again a mosque, photogenic by day or dusk but the area should be avoided at night.

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.

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

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.

This was rediscovered in 2010 when an overlying building was demolished. It was built circa 430 AD to store water brought in by Valens Aqueduct. It's smaller than the better-known Basilica Cistern, but better lit, more atmospheric and less touristy.

A small town 40 km west of central Istanbul and 15 km north of Büyükçekmece that had a substantial Greek population until the 1920s transfers. Spared from destruction in the Balkan wars which foreshadowed the Great War, the old quarter has many historic wooden buildings and fountains in leafy squares. A short stretch of the old town walls still stand just north of the centre. In the outer areas, bunkers of the WW2 'Çakmak Line' and remnants of the Byzantine Anastasios Walls could be observed. The town's main sight, housed in a red brick neoclassical building erected as a Greek tavern, this museum commemorates the forced population transfer of 1922–26, whereby Greeks living in Turkey were expelled to Greece, while the Turks of Greece were expelled to Turkey.

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.

Although not at the size of Hagia Sophia, this is the largest active church in Turkey. It’s directly on Istiklal St, but somewhat hidden from view by its yard portal. Catholic Masses in Italian, Turkish, and English (in different days of the week).

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.

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.

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.

A contemporary art museum in a building converted from an old power plant: 1914-built and coal-fired, this was the oldest in Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire. Part of the plant was kept in almost exact original condition and now serves as the "Energy Museum".