Private Best of Istanbul Tour 1, 2 or 3 Days with Priority Tickets

Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia, built in 537 as the cathedral of Constantinople and the largest building in the world for nearly a thousand years, is the first stop of day one. Your guide arranges the priority ticket and takes you under the 31-metre dome, past the marble revetments and the Byzantine mosaics of the galleries, explaining its centuries as a mosque and its return to worship in 2020. Entry is restricted during the five daily prayers, and on Fridays the building is seen from outside only.

Across the Hippodrome stands the Blue Mosque, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque of 1616 with its six minarets and 20,000 blue Iznik tiles. It is an active mosque: shoulders and knees covered, women's heads covered, shoes off, and no visits on Friday until 14:00 or during prayers. The guide times both so you see one while the other is closed, and swaps in the Basilica Cistern if needed.

Topkapi Palace and the Basilica Cistern

Topkapi Palace was the seat of the Ottoman sultans from 1465 to the 1850s, and a Topkapi Palace private tour is the most valuable part of day one because the four courtyards, the Imperial Treasury, the Sacred Relics and the kitchens take two hours even with priority entry. Your guide arranges the ticket and goes straight to what interests you, whether the emerald dagger in the Treasury or the terrace views over the Golden Horn. The palace is closed on Tuesdays, when the programme moves Dolmabahçe or the cistern into its place.

The Basilica Cistern beneath Sultanahmet, built in 532 with 336 marble columns to store the water of the Byzantine capital, takes about 40 minutes and is a cool relief in summer. Children under eight enter the museums free with a passport copy to show their age.

The Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar

Day one ends in the Grand Bazaar, the covered market of 61 streets and some 4,000 shops that began with a bedesten in 1461; the guide walks you through the jewellers' street, the old bedesten of antiques and the carpet hans, and shows you how to bargain and where locals actually buy. It is closed on Sundays, so on a Sunday the guide suggests the Arasta Bazaar behind the Blue Mosque instead.

Day two begins at the Spice Bazaar in Eminönü, the Egyptian Market of 1664 whose stalls sell saffron, dried fruit, Turkish delight, cheeses and coffee under a vaulted roof beside the New Mosque. It is open daily and is the best place to buy edible gifts; your guide points out the trustworthy stalls and the pastry shops in the streets behind, all halal.

The Bosphorus cruise and Dolmabahçe Palace

From Eminönü, day two continues with a Bosphorus cruise, a boat trip up the strait past Dolmabahçe Palace, Ortaköy Mosque, the Bosphorus Bridge and the waterside mansions of the Asian shore; boat tickets are not in the tour price and your guide buys them on the day. After the cruise you drive or take the tram to Dolmabahçe Palace, the marble palace of 1856 where the last sultans lived, with its 4.5-tonne crystal chandelier and the room where the Republic's founder died.

Dolmabahçe is closed on Mondays and its rules do not allow outside guides to lecture inside, so your guide briefs you beforehand and you visit with the palace's own system. The afternoon finishes in Taksim Square, the Çiçek Pasajı arcade and İstiklal Street, the pedestrian avenue with its historic tram.

Süleymaniye, Fener and Balat

Day three starts at the Süleymaniye Mosque, the masterpiece of the architect Sinan completed in 1557 on the highest hill of the Old City, whose terrace gives the best view over the Golden Horn and whose courtyard is far quieter than the Blue Mosque's. Dress rules are the same as at any mosque and your guide times the visit between prayers.

From there the vehicle drops you in Fener and Balat, the old Greek and Jewish quarters on the Golden Horn, now the most photographed streets in Istanbul for their painted 19th-century houses, cafés and antique shops on steep cobbled lanes. A Fener and Balat private tour with a guide explains what the facades hide: the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the red-brick Greek school on the hill and the Iron Church, the cast-iron Bulgarian church of 1898 on the waterfront, restored in 2018.

Pierre Loti Hill and Chora Mosque

The afternoon of day three climbs Pierre Loti Hill in Eyüp by cable car (ticket paid on the day), a two-minute ride from the Golden Horn shore to a terrace of tea gardens above the old Eyüp cemetery, with the whole Golden Horn and the Old City skyline laid out below; your guide orders Turkish tea and explains the view.

The last stop is Chora, the Kariye Mosque near the Theodosian land walls, a Byzantine church of the 1300s whose domes and walls carry the finest surviving mosaics and frescoes of the late Byzantine world, reopened to visitors in 2024 after restoration. It is small, so 45 minutes is enough; the guide ends the day at your hotel or wherever you prefer in the city.