Istanbul Modern

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 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.

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).

Vast underground cistern built by Justinian in 532 to store the city's water, the largest and best-known of the hundreds constructed. It's a cathedral-like space with 336 richly decorated columns. Time was you explored in a little rowing boat, but tourist numbers have soared and water levels have dropped, so now you follow a boardwalk, with lights, piped music and art installations. It's sometimes a film location, and stages concerts. But the crowds rob it of atmosphere and you might prefer to seek out one of the less-visited cisterns.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Named after a 16th-century village, founded by Serbs deported from Belgrade when it fell to the Ottomans. The village was popular as a forest resort, but its inhabitants were resettled in the 19th century and it's now a bosky ruin. The forest is mostly primordial and deciduous, predominantly oak. It's dotted with ancient aqueducts and dams as this area was a water catchment for Constantinople / Istanbul, and has lots of walking jogging and cycling trails and picnic areas. The two main ways in are via Bahçeköy (near the Arboretum entrance) and Kemerburgaz (which has the best aqueducts). There's a small access toll. The forest is supposedly a protected area but is being encroached on by highways and suburbs: this is likely to get worse as the access route to Istanbul's new airport leads right through it.

This is the main attraction around this part of the city. The holiest Islamic shrine in the city, the complex includes, right next to the mosque, the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (Eyüp Ensari Türbesi), the standard bearer of Prophet Mohammad, died and buried here during the first Muslim siege of Constantinople (674-678 AD). The neighbourhood was named after him. Muslims flock here (in such huge numbers that sometimes you have to queue for a few minutes before entering the tomb) also to see a rather uninteresting plaque made of plastic, which is purported to be Mohammad's footprint. The interior of the tomb, covered with fine tiles/faience, is nonetheless well worth a look, however. It is also interesting to see the devout Muslims leaving the place by walking backwards through its exit hallway, as not to turn their backs to al-Ansari's catafalque, though obviously no one expects everyone to quit the place in the same manner.

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.

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.