Fener and Balat Colored Streets Tour with Historian Guide

Fener and the Colourful Steps

Fener, the lighthouse quarter, climbs steeply from the Golden Horn to the ridge of the old city walls, and for four centuries it was the heart of Greek Orthodox life in Istanbul, the district of the wealthy Phanariot families who served the sultans as interpreters and governors. Your walk starts at the waterfront and goes straight up: the first stop is the Colourful Steps, a long staircase painted in rainbow bands between tall stone houses, which has become the symbol of the district. The historian guide explains why so many of the grand houses stand empty, how the Greek population shrank in the twentieth century and how the quarter is now reviving with cafés and restorations.

Fener is hilly and the lanes are cobbled, so wear comfortable shoes; the climb is the hardest part of the Fener and Balat walking tour and comes early, when you are fresh.

St George's Cathedral and the Ecumenical Patriarchate

At the foot of the hill, behind a plain wall, lies the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual centre of Orthodox Christianity worldwide and the seat of its Patriarch since 1601. The main gate has been sealed since 1821 and visitors enter by a side door into the courtyard of St George's Cathedral, a modest basilica from outside whose interior glows with a carved and gilded wooden screen of icons, a patriarchal throne said to date from the Byzantine era, mosaic icons and relics brought from the churches of the old city. Your guide takes you inside for about forty-five minutes and explains the liturgy, the icons and the role of the Patriarchate today.

Entry is included on this tour. The cathedral is a place of worship, so shoulders and knees must be covered, shorts, mini skirts and sleeveless tops are not allowed, and voices are kept low; photography without flash is normally permitted.

St Mary of the Mongols and the Fener Greek High School

Two of the most unusual buildings in Istanbul stand a few minutes apart on the slope of Fener. The Church of St Mary of the Mongols, a small red-painted Byzantine church of the thirteenth century, was founded by a Byzantine princess who had been married to a Mongol khan and returned to the city as a nun; by a decree issued after the Ottoman conquest it was allowed to remain a church, and it is the only Byzantine church in Istanbul that has stayed in Greek Orthodox hands without interruption. The tour stops outside to hear the story and see the walls.

Above it looms the Fener Greek Orthodox High School, the enormous red-brick building with a central dome and towers that visitors call the castle; built in the 1880s for a school founded soon after the conquest, it still teaches a handful of pupils and dominates every view of the Golden Horn from the water. The walk passes beneath its walls on the way to Balat.

The coloured houses and cafés of Balat

Balat, downhill and west of Fener, is where the famous coloured houses are: narrow three-storey timber and stone homes with bay windows, painted in blues, yellows, pinks and greens along streets that tumble towards the Golden Horn. The quarter was for centuries the main Jewish district of the city, settled by families who arrived from Spain in the fifteenth century, and later shared with Greeks and Armenians; today its antique shops, vintage stores and small cafés have made Balat a favourite with photographers and local weekenders. Your guide leads you through the best lanes, pointing out the old bakeries, the hidden fountains and the courtyards that look as they did a century ago.

There is a short break for a tea or a Turkish coffee at your own expense, and the guide's tips on where to eat afterwards: everything is halal, from the lahmacun ovens to the ice-cream shops. Balat is best in the morning light or the golden hour before sunset.

Ahrida Synagogue and Jewish Balat

In the lanes of Balat stands the Ahrida Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in Istanbul, founded in the fifteenth century by Jews from the town of Ohrid in the Balkans and rebuilt several times since. Its most famous feature, inside, is the reading platform shaped like the prow of a ship, which tradition links to the ships that carried the Sephardic exiles to the Ottoman lands. Visiting the interior requires a permit arranged days in advance, so this tour sees the synagogue from outside while the historian guide tells the story of the community, its schools, hospital and printing presses and the steep decline of its numbers in the twentieth century.

The quarter around it still holds a second synagogue, the former Jewish hospital on the shore and street names that remember the old neighbourhood, and walking it with someone who knows the history turns a pretty district into a living one.

The Bulgarian St Stephen Church, the iron church

The walk ends on the shore of the Golden Horn at one of the strangest and loveliest churches in the world. The Bulgarian St Stephen Church was built entirely of cast iron: its panels were made in Vienna in the 1890s, shipped down the Danube and across the Black Sea, and bolted together on the Golden Horn, where the soft ground could not carry a stone building. Inaugurated in 1898 and fully restored in 2018, it gleams white and cream with neo-Gothic and neo-Baroque details, a bell tower and small domes, set in a garden on the water.

Entry is included and the visit lasts about half an hour: the interior is also iron, painted to look like marble, with icons and the tombs of Bulgarian church leaders in the garden. From here it is a two-minute walk back to the Fener stop of the T5 tram, or a pleasant stroll along the shore to the Golden Horn ferry piers.