Bosphorus Dinner Cruise with Live Show and Private Table

The Bosphorus at night, Europe on one side and Asia on the other

The Bosphorus is the strait that joins the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and cuts Istanbul into a European and an Asian half. By day it is the city's busiest waterway, crossed by ferries from Eminönü, Kabataş, Beşiktaş and Üsküdar; after dark it becomes a corridor of light, with palaces, mosques and wooden mansions floodlit along both shores and the two bridges changing colour overhead. A Bosphorus night cruise is the easiest way to see all of this in one go, because the yacht follows the shoreline closely and turns back at the second bridge.

Our Istanbul team recommends this dinner cruise to anyone asking what to do in Istanbul at night. You board at 20:30, after the sunset prayer, when the city skyline is fully lit, and you spend about three hours on the water. Seats are inside the warm saloon at your private table, and the open deck is there whenever you want photographs of the bridges or the Maiden's Tower passing by.

Dolmabahçe Palace and Çırağan Palace from the water

The first great sight after leaving the pier is Dolmabahçe Palace, the nineteenth-century residence that the Ottoman sultans built when they left Topkapi for a European-style palace on the shore. Its 600-metre marble facade, the ornate gate opening straight onto the strait and the clock tower beside the mosque are all lit at night, and from the water you see the whole length of the building at once, something you cannot do from the street. A few minutes later comes Çırağan Palace, another imperial waterfront palace, restored after a fire and now glowing behind its own quay.

Both palaces are best appreciated from a boat, which is why a Bosphorus cruise past Dolmabahçe Palace is on most Istanbul itineraries. If you plan to visit Dolmabahçe Palace in the daytime, this evening view from the yacht is the perfect complement, and the host on board points out the main buildings as you pass.

Ortaköy Mosque and the Bosphorus Bridge

Ortaköy is the small waterfront district just before the first bridge, famous for its baroque mosque standing right at the water's edge. The Ortaköy Mosque, built in the 1850s, has two slender minarets and large windows that are illuminated at night, and the 15 July Martyrs Bridge, which everyone still calls the Bosphorus Bridge, rises directly behind it. The pairing of the small mosque with the enormous suspension bridge is the most photographed scene of any Bosphorus cruise.

The yacht slows here and then passes beneath the bridge, whose cables and towers are lit in slowly changing colours. This is the moment most guests leave their table for the deck. On the Asian side the lights of Beylerbeyi and Çengelköy appear, and the audio of the live Turkish music drifts out from the saloon. Ortaköy itself, with its square of cafés and kumpir stalls, is a lovely place to return to on foot on another day.

Rumeli Fortress, the second bridge and Anadolu Hisarı

Beyond Arnavutköy and Bebek the shore rises steeply, and on the European hillside stand the floodlit walls and towers of Rumeli Fortress. Sultan Mehmet II built it in 1452, in a matter of months, to control the narrowest point of the Bosphorus before the conquest of Constantinople the following year. Directly opposite, on the Asian bank, is the much older and smaller Anadolu Hisarı, the Anatolian Fortress, built by his great-grandfather at the mouth of the Göksu stream.

Between the two fortresses the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge spans the strait at its narrowest point, and this is where the yacht turns around for the return along the Asian shore. The fortresses are lit at night, so you see the silhouette of the battlements against the dark hills. This is the halfway point of the cruise, and dinner's main course is usually being served around now.

Beylerbeyi Palace and the Maiden's Tower on the Asian shore

On the way back the yacht keeps to the Asian side. Just after the first bridge stands Beylerbeyi Palace, a white marble summer palace of the 1860s with two bathing pavilions on the quay; it hosted visiting royalty and is beautifully floodlit from the water. Then come the old wooden houses of Kuzguncuk and the long Üsküdar waterfront with its mosques, before the final and most romantic sight of the evening.

The Maiden's Tower stands on a tiny islet just off Üsküdar, where the Bosphorus meets the Sea of Marmara. It has been a lighthouse, a customs post and a quarantine station over the centuries, and tonight it is simply a lit white tower on the water with the domes and minarets of the historic peninsula behind it. The yacht passes close to it before heading back to the European pier, and the show on board reaches its finale about the same time.

On board: your private table, the dinner and the show

The yacht has a large indoor saloon with a stage and panoramic windows, and a smaller VIP lounge on the upper deck. Every booking of two or more people gets its own table; solo travellers are seated together. The standard dinner starts with six cold Turkish mezes and a hot starter, followed by your choice of sea bass fillet, sautéed chicken with tomatoes and peppers, beef stroganoff or a vegetarian dish, and finishes with seasonal fruit. Soft drinks, water, tea and Turkish coffee are unlimited, and halal, vegetarian and pescetarian menus are available.

The entertainment runs through the evening: live traditional Turkish music during dinner, then a programme of Anatolian folk dances, a whirling dervish performance and Latin dance, ending with a DJ for anyone who wants to dance. The VIP options add a richer menu, priority boarding and a quieter upper-deck lounge, and window-side or close-to-stage seats can be added when you book.