Istanbul · 3 days
Three days in Istanbul, arranged the way I would actually do it
One day per personality of the city, in the order that makes each one land. The third is the day nobody plans and everybody remembers.
Ibrahim Uzun / Unsplash
Istanbul does not reward the itinerary that tries to see everything. It is two continents, three empires and roughly fifteen million people, and the visitor who sprints between the famous things spends most of the trip in traffic.
So this is arranged by character rather than by proximity. Each day is one version of the city, taken whole. The order matters: the old city first while it is still novel, the modern European side second, and the Asian shore last, when you have earned the ability to notice what is different about it.
Fatih / Unsplash
Day 1
The Historic Core
Sultanahmet & the Old City
Be at Hagia Sophia by half past eight or do not bother. The coaches arrive at nine and the building stops being a religious space and starts being a queue. Everything else on this day is within a ten-minute walk, which is the entire argument for sleeping inside the old city rather than near it.
Breakfast Simit Sarayı, Sultanahmet Branch
Linus Mimietz / Unsplash
Day 2
Beyoğlu & the Bosphorus
European Modernity
Cross the water in the evening rather than at noon. Beyoğlu is a dinner city and a walking city, and it looks like neither in the middle of a hot afternoon. Take the ferry rather than a taxi — it costs almost nothing and it is the best twenty minutes of the day.
Breakfast Van Kahvaltı Evi, Cihangir
Ninety Seven Years / Pexels
Day 3
The Asian Shore
Kadıköy, Üsküdar & the Real City
This is the day people leave out, and it is my favourite. Kadıköy is where Istanbul stops performing for visitors and simply gets on with it: a produce market people actually shop in, bars with no view to sell, and a ferry ride back at dusk that costs the price of a bus ticket.
Breakfast Kadıköy Produce Market (Kadıköy Çarşısı)
If you only have two days, drop the second, not the third. Beyoğlu is the day you can approximate in a dozen other cities. The Asian shore is not.