Small-Group Yacht Bosphorus Cruise Day, Sunset or Night with Snacks

Kabataş pier, Dolmabahçe Palace and Çırağan Palace

The yacht is moored at the small pier directly opposite Kabataş tram station, the last stop of the T1 line from Sultanahmet, Eminönü and Karaköy and of the F1 funicular from Taksim, which makes this the easiest Bosphorus yacht cruise in Istanbul to reach without a transfer. You board, pick up your snack platter and a drink, and the yacht moves off along the European shore past Dolmabahçe Palace, the 1856 marble palace of the last sultans whose 600-metre façade and ceremonial water gate are best seen exactly from here.

Then come the Dolmabahçe Mosque with its paired minarets, the Beşiktaş ferry pier and Çırağan Palace, the 19th-century palace rebuilt as a hotel after its 1910 fire, its arcades reflected in the water. The audio guide on your phone starts here; put your headphones in and sit on the shore side of the deck for the first fifteen minutes.

Ortaköy Mosque and the Bosphorus Bridge

Ortaköy Mosque, finished in 1856 in the same baroque style as Dolmabahçe, stands right on the quay of Ortaköy square with the first Bosphorus Bridge towering behind it, and the combination of the little mosque and the great suspension bridge is the most famous view of the strait. The yacht slows here for photographs; from the water you see the mosque's two minarets framed by the bridge's deck, 64 metres above the surface.

Passing under the bridge, opened in 1973 as the first fixed link between Europe and Asia, is the moment every Bosphorus cruise with audio guide builds towards, and the captain takes the yacht almost beneath the central span. Beyond it the shore becomes Kuruçeşme and Arnavutköy, with wooden yalı mansions, fish restaurants and the moored boats of the Bebek marina, where the water widens.

Rumeli Fortress and the turning point

Rumeli Fortress, or Rumeli Hisarı, is the fortress built in 1452 in just four months on the narrowest point of the Bosphorus to close the strait before the conquest of Constantinople; its three huge towers and curtain walls climb the hillside directly opposite the older Anatolian Fortress. The yacht reaches it after about 45 minutes, with the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge of 1988 spanning the strait just beyond, and this is where it turns for the Asian side.

This upper stretch is where you feel the yacht rather than the city: the strait is 700 metres wide here, the current runs visibly towards the Marmara and the deck gets the breeze. On the sunset departure the sun drops behind the European hills at this point and the fortress walls glow orange; on the daytime sailing it is the best moment for photographs of the bridge.

Anatolian Fortress, Küçüksu Palace and Beylerbeyi Palace

Coming down the Asian shore the yacht passes close to Anadolu Hisarı, the Anatolian Fortress of 1395, the oldest Ottoman building in Istanbul, a small keep at the mouth of the Göksu stream among wooden houses and fishing boats. A few hundred metres on stands Küçüksu Palace, a small ornate hunting lodge of 1857 on the waterfront, and then the long marble front of Beylerbeyi Palace, the summer palace of 1865 beside the Asian tower of the Bosphorus Bridge.

The audio guide explains each one; Beylerbeyi, with its bathing pavilions on the quay and magnolia gardens behind, is the highlight of the Asian side and is only ever seen properly from the water. Guests who want to visit the palaces on land can do so from the Üsküdar or Beylerbeyi piers another day; the yacht does not stop.

Maiden's Tower and the return to Kabataş

The last landmark is Maiden's Tower, the small white tower on a rock 200 metres off Üsküdar that has served as lighthouse, customs post and quarantine station since Byzantine times; the present building dates from 1725. The yacht makes a slow pass with the Old City skyline of Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque behind it, which is the photograph most guests take away from a small-group Bosphorus cruise.

The yacht then crosses back to the European shore, past the modern Galataport quay and the Dolmabahçe walls, and ties up at Kabataş two hours after departure, give or take a few minutes with the current. From the pier you are five minutes on foot from Dolmabahçe Palace and the tram, and a short funicular ride from Taksim.