Explore Istanbul

The Spice Bazaar in Eminönü is an L-shaped covered market begun in 1597 for Safiye Sultan and completed in 1664 by the architect Mustafa Ağa as part of the New Mosque complex, for Hatice Turhan Sultan. Its Turkish name, Egyptian Bazaar, recalls the duties on Egyptian goods that funded it; six gates lead to stalls of spices, dried fruit and Turkish delight.

The Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum occupies the palace of Grand Vizier Pargalı İbrahim Pasha, built around 1524 on the west side of the Hippodrome. Founded in 1914 and moved here in 1983, it shows carpets, calligraphy and Qurans, tiles, woodwork and metalwork from across the Islamic world, and an ethnographic section with reconstructed nomad tents and village rooms.

The Basilica Cistern is an underground reservoir built under Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century to supply the Great Palace and nearby buildings. Its brick vaults, covering about 140 by 70 metres, rest on 336 marble columns nine metres high, and walkways lead over the water to two Medusa heads reused as column bases. A restoration completed in 2022 reopened it as a museum.

The Istanbul Archaeology Museums in Gülhane, beside Topkapı Palace, group three buildings: the Neoclassical Archaeological Museum by Alexandre Vallaury, opened in 1891, the Museum of the Ancient Orient and the Tiled Kiosk of 1472. Expanded under director Osman Hamdi Bey, the collection includes the Alexander Sarcophagus and other finds from the royal necropolis of Sidon.

Galata Tower was built by the Genoese in 1348 as the Tower of Christ at the highest point of the walls around their Galata colony, and at about 67 metres it was then the tallest building in the city. Later a prison and a fire lookout, it was restored in 2020 and is now a museum, with a gallery around its top overlooking the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus.

Istanbul Modern opened in 2004 as Turkey's first museum of modern and contemporary art and moved in 2023 into a new building by Renzo Piano on the Karaköy waterfront, within the Galataport complex. It shows its collection of Turkish art from the 20th century onwards and its photography collection alongside temporary exhibitions, with a cinema and a library.

The Maiden's Tower stands on a small islet at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus, 200 metres off the Üsküdar shore. Fortified by the Byzantines, who stretched a chain from it across the strait in the 12th century, it was rebuilt several times under the Ottomans and served as a lighthouse; after a restoration it reopened in 2023 as a museum reached by boat from Salacak.

Beylerbeyi Palace stands on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus in Üsküdar, beside the Bosphorus Bridge. Sultan Abdülaziz had it built in 1861–1865 as a summer residence and a guesthouse for foreign rulers such as Empress Eugénie; the marble building pairs a Neo-Baroque exterior with Ottoman interiors and has terraced gardens with smaller pavilions.

The Istanbul Sapphire Skydeck is the observation terrace of Istanbul Sapphire, a 261-metre residential and shopping tower in the Levent business district designed by Tabanlıoğlu Architects and completed in 2010. Binoculars look out over the Bosphorus and both continents, and the deck adds a café and Skyride, a 4D helicopter flight simulation over the city.