Private Customized Istanbul Tour with Guide 4 to 7 Hours

Sultanahmet: Hippodrome, Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia

Almost every private tour of Istanbul starts where yours does, at the German Fountain on the Hippodrome, the ancient racetrack of Constantinople whose obelisks and columns still stand in the gardens of Sultanahmet Square. Two of the greatest buildings on earth face each other across it. The Blue Mosque, with its six minarets and more than twenty thousand Iznik tiles, is free to enter outside prayer times and closed to visitors on Friday until the early afternoon; your guide knows the rhythm of the day and plans around it. Hagia Sophia, the sixth-century Byzantine cathedral that became an imperial mosque and is a mosque again today, is visited through its upper gallery with a ticket the guide reserves for you.

With a private guide the difference is time: you linger where you like, hear the stories behind the mosaics and the calligraphy and ask what you want. These three sites fill most of a four-hour morning or afternoon.

Topkapı Palace and the Basilica Cistern

If you choose Topkapı Palace, allow at least two hours: the residence of the Ottoman sultans for four centuries is a sequence of courtyards, kiosks and gardens on the point above the Bosphorus, with the imperial council chamber, the treasury of jewels and the chamber of sacred relics of the Prophet, which our guests often ask to see first. The palace is closed on Tuesdays, which is why the half-day combinations with Topkapı are offered for the other six days, and the Harem is visited with a separate ticket that the guide arranges.

The Basilica Cistern, a few minutes away, is the underground reservoir of the Byzantine city, a hall of 336 columns reflected in still water with the famous Medusa heads at the far end; a visit takes about forty-five minutes. Both sites sell timed tickets, and this is where a private guide earns the fee: the tickets are reserved in advance for the time you arrive, and you walk past the queue.

Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar and Rüstem Pasha Mosque

Shopping and crafts have their own suggested itinerary on this tour, and the bazaars appear in most of the others too. The Grand Bazaar, begun just after the conquest in the fifteenth century, is a covered city of streets and hans with thousands of shops for carpets, ceramics, leather, jewellery and lamps; it is closed on Sundays and during religious holidays. Your guide steers you to the workshops and honest traders and explains how to bargain, or simply keeps you from getting lost. Downhill towards the Golden Horn, the Spice Bazaar sells spices, dried fruit, Turkish delight and coffee in a seventeenth-century arcade beside the New Mosque, and it opens every day except religious holidays.

A few steps away, above the shops of Tahtakale, the small Rüstem Pasha Mosque by the architect Sinan hides the finest Iznik tile interior in the city, a favourite stop of our Istanbul team on any walk through this quarter.

Bosphorus boat trip and Dolmabahçe Palace

Several of the full-day routes include a Bosphorus boat trip, the public boat that leaves from Eminönü and takes about ninety minutes up and down the strait past palaces, wooden mansions and the fortresses, with your guide beside you to name every shore. Combined with Dolmabahçe Palace, this becomes a day about the last Ottoman century: the palace, built in the 1850s on the European shore, replaced Topkapı as the imperial residence and shows a European style of crystal staircases, vast chandeliers and ceremonial halls facing the water. It is closed on Mondays, and tickets are arranged by the guide; the boat ticket is paid separately on the day.

Our team suggests this route for guests who have already seen Sultanahmet, or for a second day with the same guide; it pairs naturally with the Spice Bazaar and the Rüstem Pasha Mosque on the walk back.

Galata, Taksim and the Asian side

Beyond the old city, the guide can take you across the Galata Bridge to the Genoese Galata Tower, up the hill to the nineteenth-century avenue of İstiklal Street with its nostalgic tram, passages and pastry shops, and on to Taksim Square, the heart of modern Istanbul. This route shows a different city from Sultanahmet, one of embassies, churches and art nouveau apartment blocks, and it works well in the afternoon when the old city sites are busiest.

For a day on both continents, a private vehicle can be added at extra cost: the Galata Tower and the Golden Horn view from Pierre Loti Hill in Europe, then the Çamlıca Mosque and Çamlıca Hill, the local bazaar of Üsküdar and a photo stop facing the Maiden's Tower on the Asian shore. Whatever you choose, the itinerary is agreed with you before the day, and the guide adjusts it on the spot if the weather or your energy changes.