Museum pass: Istanbul Müzekart
Planning some serious sightseeing? The Istanbul Museum Pass allows free entrance to a dozen of the city’s top sites, including the Topkapı Palace and the Hagia Sophia, plus discounts on a selection of other museums, shops, restaurants and activities. It costs a wallet-friendly 85 lira (£20 at current, favourable, rates) for three days or 115 lire (£27) for five days. Even better, passholders can jump the queues, too. Insider tip: although you can purchase your Müzekart from any of the participating museums, save yourself precious time by doing so at one of the quieter venues, such as the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.
See it from the Bosphorus
Plenty of visitors to this sprawling city opt for a Bosphorus boat tour. These scenic cruises chug along the straits, taking in highlights such as the 15th-century Rumeli Hisarı fort and the pretty waterside village of Arnavutköy. These are not pricey (from £3 for a 90-minute ride), but penny pinchers can simply hop aboard one of the hundreds of commuter ferries (ido.com.tr) that zip back and forth across this teeming waterway every day. For about 35p, you can travel between Europe and Asia, glass of çay (tea, around 20p) in hand, while admiring those same sights, as well as a skyline splashed with the Galata Tower, the Blue Mosque and the Princes’ Islands.
Hop over to Asia
The suburb of Karaköy is now so painfully hip that many locals instead hop on a direct ferry to Kadıköy, just across the water. This Asian neighbourhood’s most historic quarter, Yeldeğirmeni, is studded with frescoed French villas and Italianate apartments. For boutique teashops and vegan cafes, wander down the main boulevard, Iskele Sokak. Action is centred around the Yeldeğirmeni Art Center, formerly the French-built Notre Dame du Rosaire church. Catch a film screening, workshop or exhibition here, or in the Design Atelier Kadıköy building around the block. Yeldeğirmeni’s most eccentric attraction is the Don Kişot (Quixote) Occupied Building on Duatepe Sokak. This social squat hosts alternative Saturday meetings with seed swaps and food workshops. Our favourite fashionable hostel, Hush, with dorm beds from £10, is just round the corner.
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Cycling tours
Pedalling around Istanbul’s bustling streets isn’t the most obvious way to get to know this booming metropolis. But Istanbul’s increasingly popular cycling tours can be an unexpected delight. At Istanbul On Bike, Dario and team offer half a dozen tours that pedal past the Sultanahmet neighbourhood’s highlights (including the Grand Bazaar), edge along the Golden Horn waterfront or meander through Kadıköy. For something more challenging, book a 45km loop along both Istanbul’s European and Asian Bosphorus shores, taking in the picturesque suburb of Ortaköy and the Bosphorus Bridge. Three-hour tours start at €45pp, based on four participants, and include bike rental, helmets, drinks and snacks.
A guided bike tour of Istanbul
Groovy souvenirs
Curl up with a good book … Istanbul boasts many fine bookshops. Photograph: Alamy
Slippers made from Turkish newspapers? iPad portraits of hidden Istanbul? As the lira wallows against the pound and euro, bringing back a suitcase of Turkish delights has rarely been cheaper. For books, the recently opened Ferman Sahaf (Kemeraltı Caddesi 21) stocks vintage Istanbul architectural tomes and linen-backed film posters. Aslıhan Pasajı (off Istiklal Caddesi) is an arcade full of second-hand Agatha Christies and battered copies of Turkish history mag Cornucopia. Hip bookworm haunt Minoa (Süleyman Seba Caddesi) is the place for fans of beautifully produced art books. Affordable art also abounds: Mixerarts (Karabaş Caddesi 27) is a garage-turned-gallery where prospective exhibitors upload their art and the most successful works go on public sale. For snazzy homewares, try Kağıthane (Fransız İş Geçidi 11), where Ottoman-inspired notebooks, wine bottle medallions and Bosphorus fish-serving dishes vie for shelf space.
See Istanbul’s ‘big three’ football clubs in action
Football fans in Istanbul are so vociferous that when Beşiktaş played local rivals Fenerbahçe a decade ago, the decibel level clocked 132, the equivalent of a plane taking off. Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray, the third club of Istanbul’s big three, aim to top this season’s Turkish Süper Lig with respective new signings Lukas Podolski and Robin van Persie. Watching a live game is raucous, boisterous yet overwhelmingly friendly. Things have become safer since the recent introduction of the Passolig identity card system. Foreigners must register online (in English, at passo.com.tr/en) before purchasing match tickets. Even better, all three clubs are set to welcome Europe’s top teams this year. Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe play in the Champions League, and Beşiktaş hosts Europa League clubs in a sparkling new stadium opposite the Dolmabahçe Palace – former home to the Ottoman sultans.
Secret gardens
If you’ve spent your day sightseeing in Istanbul’s bustling Sultanahmet, it’s hard to imagine losing the crowds in this city of 14 million people. Yet Istanbul is scattered with choice green spaces, each ideal for a picnic or simply a quiet breather. Escape to the Beşiktaş neighbourhood’s Yıldız Park, formerly royal hunting grounds serving the Dolmabahçe Palace opposite. Today the park is crisscrossed by sun-dappled footpaths leading to ornate 19th-century pavilions. Across the Bosphorus in Üsküdar, the serene Haydarpaşa cemetery is a lesson in British military history, with the graves of Commonwealth soldiers who fought in the Crimea and the first and second world wars. The former imperial retreat of Gülhane Park is great for a leafy respite in downtown Sultanahmet.
Historic Balat
The once-grand suburb of Balat was home to Istanbul’s Greek and Jewish populations, and ancient places of worship such as the Chora church and Ahrida synagogue remain. An EU-funded project saw about 100 of Balat’s dilapidated townhouses restored to their original glory, and the neighbourhood’s brightly coloured, bougainvillea-strewn buildings now house cafes including live Arabesque music spot Derviş Baba (Kürkçü Çeşmesi Caddesi 79) and female-run Café Vodina (Vodina Caddesi 41). Vodina Caddesi is a multi-hued Portobello Road of antiques stores and haberdashers, plus ancient sights including the 15th-century Tahtaminare hamam (no 95), and the hidden Metochion of Jerusalem Orthodox Church (the shop owner at no 48 holds the key).
The revival of the Fener-Balat quarter
Bargain baths
Turkey’s historical hamams – steamy, swathed in marble and famed for their no-holds-barred scrub-downs – are on most Istanbul visitors’ to-do lists. But in recent years, prices at downtown bathhouses have skyrocketed. Budget travellers are advised to head to the 17th-century Çinili hamam in the Asian suburb of Üsküdar instead. For around £9 you’ll be lathered, pummelled and swaddled alongside local bathers. For visitors short on time, meticulously renovated Kılıç Ali Paşa hamam – in hip Karaköy offers a reasonably priced yet luxuriously bubbly wash and massage for around £35.
City walls
The crumbling walls that encircle European Istanbul from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara were built in 413AD – just in time to protect the city from Attila the Hun. Discover a cross-section of local history by hiking the five miles alongside and atop the 96 defensive towers. Start in the south at the seven-towered castle of Yedikule. In 1889, the first direct Orient Express from Paris rattled through a hole in the city walls just north of here. Walk on to find allotments on top of the moat that once ringed the ramparts. From the high point of the splendid Mihrimah Sultan mosque, descend to the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus – once an emperors’ crash pad, later a Jewish poorhouse, a tile factory and a brothel.
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