Sultanahmet and the old city: how everything fits together

What it is

The historic peninsula — Byzantine and Ottoman Constantinople

UNESCO

Inscribed as the Historic Areas of Istanbul, 1985

Walkable

Yes — the core sights are within 10 minutes of each other

Getting there

T1 tram, Sultanahmet stop

Best time of day

Before 10am for the monuments; evening for the gardens

Eat

Two or three streets back from the square, not on it

The geography, in one paragraph

Stand in the gardens between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque and you are at the center of it. The Hippodrome runs south-west from the Blue Mosque. The Basilica Cistern is a two-minute walk north. Topkapı Palace is five minutes north-east, on the headland above the water. Downhill to the west, about fifteen minutes, is the Grand Bazaar; below that, Süleymaniye and then the Spice Bazaar at the water's edge. That is the whole of the classic Istanbul itinerary, and you can walk all of it.

Walking it in the right order

The order that works, and the reason it works, is about crowds and prayer times rather than distance. Start at the Hippodrome — free, open, empty early. Then the Blue Mosque before the coaches. Then Hagia Sophia, allowing ninety minutes. Then the cistern, which is cool and underground and comes as a relief.

Save Topkapı for the afternoon if you must, but if the palace is your priority, invert everything: go there at opening and do the mosques after. What you should not do is arrive at any mosque during prayer, or at Topkapı on a Tuesday.

Beyond the obvious five

The Istanbul Archaeological Museums, just below Topkapı, are excellent and almost always quiet — the Alexander Sarcophagus alone justifies the visit. The Little Hagia Sophia (Küçük Ayasofya), a sixth-century church-turned-mosque a few streets south, is beautiful and nearly empty. The Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum on the Hippodrome holds superb carpets — genuinely worth an hour if the carpet world interests you. The Basilica of the Sea Walls and the Bucoleon Palace ruins down by the shore road are romantic and completely unvisited.

Where to eat in Sultanahmet

Honestly: not on the main square. The restaurants ringing the tourist core are mediocre and expensive, and the ones with photo menus and a greeter outside are the worst of them. Walk two or three streets back — towards Kadırga or Cankurtaran — and prices halve while quality rises. Better still, plan lunch for the Grand Bazaar end of the peninsula, where the workers' canteens serve real food.

Staying in the old city — the trade-off

Staying in Sultanahmet puts you inside the monuments, which is wonderful for a short trip and means early starts are effortless. The trade-off is that the district is quiet at night and heavily geared to visitors; there is little local life after dark.

Karaköy, Galata and Cihangir on the other side of the Golden Horn are livelier, with better food and bars, at the cost of a tram ride each morning. For a first visit of two or three days we would still say Sultanahmet; for a longer stay, cross the water.

Walking the old city with a guide

Sultanahmet is the one part of Istanbul where a guide changes the day most, because so much of what you are looking at is invisible without explanation — the Hippodrome especially, and the layered history inside Hagia Sophia. It is also where the queue and prayer-time timing has the biggest effect on how much you actually see.

On a private tailor-made Istanbul tour we walk the peninsula in the order that suits the day you are here, with tickets already handled. See also our one-day itinerary for the hour-by-hour version.

Sultanahmet old city — frequently asked questions

Sultanahmet old city in pictures