Itineraries & Day Plans

Plans built around what is shut

Every plan here starts from the closures rather than from a list of sights, because in Istanbul the closures are what actually breaks a day: the Grand Bazaar on Sunday, the mosques around each prayer, the museums on their one weekday, and the ferry timetable thinning out of season.

They also account for the hills and the water

Distances on a map of Istanbul lie. Sultanahmet to Galata looks like a walk and is a walk plus a bridge plus a steep hill. Crossing to Asia is quick but it is a journey with a timetable. Every plan below is written with the real transitions in it, not the straight lines.

The five plans

One day, two days, three days, five days and a week. The longer ones add the Asian side, then Chora and the land walls, then a day trip out of the city entirely. Each is a standing page rather than an article, so it is kept up to date rather than dated.

The two rules behind all of them

The first is that you cannot do Sultanahmet and Beyoğlu properly on the same day. They are separated by a bridge and a hill, and the crossing eats an hour each way once you allow for finding the tram. Give each of them a half-day at least.

The second is that a mosque and a museum do not stack. The mosque is shut for an hour around each prayer and the museum is shut on its weekday; put one in the morning and the other in the afternoon and you will not lose a half-day to a locked door.

What to drop first

If a day is going badly, drop the ticketed towers before anything else. The Galata Tower queue and the Hagia Sophia gallery are the two things most likely to cost you ninety minutes for fifteen minutes of value, and the free terrace at Süleymaniye gives you the same view for nothing.