Istanbul City Highlights Full-Day Tour with Optional Minivan Transport

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is the reason most travellers come to Istanbul, and your guide makes sure you understand what you are looking at. Completed in 537 as the cathedral of the Eastern Roman Empire, it was the largest building in the world for centuries, served as the chief imperial mosque after 1453 and is a mosque again today, with its upper gallery open to visitors. The vast dome, the marble columns gathered from older temples and the golden mosaics of the galleries are all explained in their context.

Visiting Hagia Sophia as a mosque means modest dress, shoes off on the carpets and short closures at prayer times, with a longer one on Friday middays; your guide checks the day's prayer times and plans around them. The visitor entrance fee is paid at the door. Our Istanbul team recommends making this the first stop of the day, when the light through the dome windows is best and the queues are shortest.

Blue Mosque

Facing Hagia Sophia across the gardens is the Blue Mosque, built between 1609 and 1616 for the young sultan who gave the district its name, Sultanahmet. It was the first mosque in the city with six minarets, which caused a stir at the time, and the interior is lined with more than twenty thousand hand-painted İznik tiles in blues and greens, lit by 260 windows. Your guide explains the courtyard, the mihrab and minbar and how a working imperial mosque is used today.

Entry is free; headscarves and covering robes are lent at the visitor entrance on the courtyard side. The mosque is closed to visitors for about thirty minutes at each of the five daily prayers and for around two hours on Friday around midday prayer, so on Fridays your guide usually visits it either early or late in the afternoon. Count around 30 to 45 minutes including the courtyard.

Hippodrome of Constantinople

Between the Blue Mosque and the tram line lies the Hippodrome, built in 203 AD under the Romans and enlarged into the greatest arena of Constantinople, where chariot races drew up to 100,000 spectators and riots once toppled emperors. The track is gone, but the central spine survives as a long paved square with three monuments: the Egyptian Obelisk of pink granite from Luxor, standing on a carved Byzantine base; the bronze Serpent Column brought from the temple at Delphi; and the Walled Obelisk, once covered in gilded bronze.

At the northern end stands the German Fountain, a domed pavilion of eight marble columns given to the city by the German emperor in 1901. The Hippodrome is a short open-air stop between the mosques, perfect for photographs and for understanding how the Byzantine city was laid out; on the minivan option the vehicle waits nearby while you walk the square.

Basilica Cistern

Beneath the streets behind Hagia Sophia lies the Basilica Cistern, the largest surviving underground water reservoir of Byzantine Constantinople, built in the sixth century and capable of holding 80,000 cubic metres of water for the imperial palace. You descend by stairs into a hall of 336 marble columns reflected in shallow water, lit in warm colours, with carp swimming between the bases and the sound of dripping water.

The two most famous columns rest on carved heads of Medusa, one placed sideways and one upside down, probably reused from a pagan building, and a third column is carved with tear shapes. The visit takes around 30 minutes with your guide and the ticket is paid at the entrance. Because of the stairs, travellers with reduced mobility may prefer to rest at a café nearby while the group goes down; tell your guide and the plan is adjusted.

Topkapi Palace

After lunch at a local halal restaurant suggested by your guide, the tour continues to Topkapi Palace, the walled residence and seat of government of the Ottoman sultans for nearly four hundred years, on the hill above the meeting of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. Through its gates you pass from the public first courtyard to the Imperial Council chamber, the enormous palace kitchens with their collection of Chinese porcelain, the Imperial Treasury with jewelled thrones and daggers, and the Chamber of the Sacred Relics.

The Harem can be added with a separate ticket if time allows. Topkapi Palace is closed on Tuesdays, and on that day your guide substitutes another sight, such as the Süleymaniye Mosque or the Spice Bazaar. The palace terraces have the best views of the day; allow about two hours, with tickets paid on the spot.

Grand Bazaar

The day ends in the Grand Bazaar, the covered market begun in 1461 and expanded over five centuries into a labyrinth of sixty streets and more than three thousand shops under painted vaults, with its own mosques, fountains, restaurants and old caravanserais. Your guide walks you through the main avenues to the historic inner bedesten and shows where the carpet dealers, goldsmiths, leather workers and lamp makers cluster, and how to tell handmade from factory goods.

With a guide of your own you shop as much or as little as you like, with help in negotiating politely. The Grand Bazaar is closed on Sundays and on public holidays; on those days the tour ends at the Spice Bazaar in Eminönü instead. From the bazaar the minivan drives you back to your hotel or ship, or on the walking option your guide shows you the tram or walks you back towards Sultanahmet.