Turkey / City
Istanbul
Where continents collide, Istanbul layers Byzantine grandeur, Ottoman palaces, and waterfront promenades into a city that has always faced two directions at once.
Also part of UNESCO World Heritage in Türkiye
Istanbul spreads across the historic peninsula with the Golden Horn curving through its heart. The city's outline forms a cascade of domes and minarets, visible from the water long before you reach shore. On the ground, the Hagia Sophia anchors the skyline—its massive dome has cast shadows over this city since the sixth century, shifting from Byzantine cathedral to Ottoman mosque and back again through the centuries. Beside it, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque rises with its six minarets, the blue tiles inside giving it a second name that outlasted the first.
The covered markets and what surrounds them
The Grand Bazaar occupies an entire city block of vaulted corridors. Its shops cluster by trade—copper workers here, carpet sellers there, jewellers in their own corner, all beneath ceilings that have sheltered commerce for centuries. Nearby, the Spice Bazaar fills the air differently: cinnamon, sumac, dried peppers, herbal teas. The building overlooks the Galata Bridge, where fishing boats tie up beside the ferry terminal and men cast lines into the grey-green water below.
The Bosphorus and its traffic
The strait is Istanbul's organising principle. Container ships and commuter ferries share the same grey water, a constant procession linking the city's two continents. From the Eminönü waterfront, you can board a ferry for the crossing that has defined this city since antiquity. The European shore reveals Ottoman wooden yalis rising from the water's edge, their windows facing Asia. On the Asian side, quieter streets and the fishing villages that predate the megacity stretch toward the Princes' Islands, barely visible in the haze. The light here changes by the hour, and the composition of domes, minarets and apartment blocks shifts accordingly.
What takes time to emerge
Beyond the major sites, the city continues in quieter registers. The Fener and Balat quarters near the former Patriarchate retain residential streets where old Greek churches stand between mosques, their wooden gates opening onto courtyards that have seen centuries of neighbourly coexistence. These neighbourhoods hold their history lightly, not performing it for visitors. The city reveals itself gradually here—in the particular blue of a tiled mosque interior, in the texture of stone worn smooth by centuries of palms, in the smell of bread from a baker whose ovens may have worked the same street since the Ottoman period. Istanbul does not exhaust itself quickly. The mosque calls come five times daily. The ferries keep crossing. The city remains unfinished in the way that only cities of this scale and antiquity can be.
On the map
Find it on the map
- Istanbul City
Tours that visit Istanbul
14 Nights / 15 Days
The Ultimate Journey Across Turkey
3 Nights Istanbul | 3 Nights Cappadocia | 1 Night Gaziantep | 1 Night Sanliurfa | 1 Night Diyarbakir | 3 Nights Mardin | 1 Night Van | 1 Night Kars
8 Nights / 9 Days
Turkey's Golden Triangle
8 Nights | 3 Istanbul · 3 Cappadocia · 1 Pamukkale · 1 Kuşadası — Hagia Sophia, fairy chimneys, white travertines and Ephesus.
9 Nights / 10 Days
Turkey's Grand Cultural Journey
9 Nights | 3 Istanbul · 3 Cappadocia · 1 Gaziantep · 1 Şanlıurfa · 1 Diyarbakır — imperial capitals, surreal landscapes and the cradle of civilization.
6 Nights / 7 Days
Turkey's Timeless Classics
6 Nights | 3 Istanbul · 3 Cappadocia — imperial palaces, Byzantine churches and the surreal fairy chimneys of Cappadocia.
Good to know
Before you book you should know
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Is this trip right for you?
Our groups are capped at eight travellers, which is about a third of what the industry calls a small group. Eight people share one vehicle, one table at dinner and one guide's attention, and the day can change on the road without anybody being left behind. If you are looking for a coach, a fixed script and a microphone, this is not that.
Most days involve real walking, often on ground that was laid two thousand years before walking shoes: marble worn smooth, cobbles, uneven steps and long site paths with little shade. Bring shoes you can spend a morning in.
Some days move between regions and are largely a drive, with stops along the way. Summers are hot — well over 35°C inland — and winters are colder than most people expect, so layers, a hat and sunscreen earn their place in the bag whatever the month.
How demanding a particular trip is, is written on the trip itself: the physical rating in the header, and the day-by-day itinerary above.
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Rooms, and travelling on your own
Trip prices are per person, sharing a twin room. Each traveller picks their own room while booking, so a party can mix the three:
- Twin share — two single beds, shared with someone you are travelling with or with a traveller of the same gender.
- Travelling as a couple — one double room.
- Individual room — a room of your own, for a single supplement on top of the trip price. Availability is limited, and the supplement for a given date is shown next to the option when you book.
Solo travellers are welcome on every departure, and most of our groups have one or two aboard.
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Accommodation
The hotels named in an itinerary are a guideline rather than a guarantee. Where one is full, or has dropped below the standard we booked it for, we substitute a property of a similar standard in the same area — we would rather change the hotel than the trip.
Check-in is usually mid-afternoon. If you arrive early we will ask for the room, but no hotel can promise one before its own check-in time; luggage can normally be left at reception in the meantime. If you want the room from the night before, ask us and we will add the extra night to your booking.
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Passports, visas and insurance
Entry requirements depend on your nationality and change without much notice, so the only reliable source is the official one: the government of the country you are travelling to, and your own foreign ministry's travel advice. Check both before you book a flight.
Many countries ask for a passport valid for at least six months beyond your travel dates, and for blank pages. It is worth looking at yours now rather than at the airport.
We ask every traveller to carry travel insurance covering medical treatment and repatriation, and we would strongly encourage cover for cancellation and for your luggage as well.
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Your departure is guaranteed — the day can change
Once a departure is on the calendar it runs. We do not cancel a trip for want of a minimum number of bookings, so a booked date is one you can plan flights and leave around.
What can move is the shape of a day. Museums and archaeological sites change their hours, roads close, weather turns, a local holiday lands in the middle of the week. Where that happens your guide reorders the day, or swaps a stop for one of the same weight, and tells you why. Changes to a booked itinerary are covered by our Booking Terms & Conditions.
