Where to go — and where the car can stop.

Every guide to Istanbul tells you to see Hagia Sophia. Almost none tell you that no vehicle can reach it, that the queue doubles by eleven, or which gate to meet your chauffeur at when you come out of the Grand Bazaar. That is the part we know.

The old city skyline of Istanbul seen across the water

Sultanahmet, Fatih

Hagia Sophia

Ayasofya

Fifteen centuries of cathedral, mosque, museum and mosque again — and the single most crowded doorway in Istanbul by ten in the morning.

45–90 minutes inside

How to arrive

Chauffeur-driven car on a road in the old city of Istanbul

Sultanahmet, Fatih

The Blue Mosque

Sultanahmet Camii

Six minarets, twenty thousand İznik tiles, and a working mosque that closes to visitors five times a day — the timing matters more than the ticket.

30–45 minutes inside

How to arrive

View over the Bosphorus from the old city of Istanbul

Sultanahmet, Fatih

Topkapı Palace

Topkapı Sarayı

Four courtyards, a treasury, a harem and the best view over the Bosphorus in the old city. The commonest mistake is allowing an hour for it.

Two to three hours, more with the Harem

How to arrive

Sultanahmet, Fatih

Basilica Cistern

Yerebatan Sarnıcı

An underground Roman water cistern the size of a cathedral, ten degrees cooler than the street above it — which makes it the right stop at exactly the wrong hour of a summer day.

30–45 minutes

How to arrive

Interior of a chauffeur-driven van with luggage space

Beyazıt, Fatih

Grand Bazaar

Kapalıçarşı

Four thousand shops under one roof, twenty-two gates, and a reliable talent for making people lose both their bearings and two hours.

One to two hours, longer if you are actually buying

How to arrive

The waterfront of the old city of Istanbul

Eminönü, Fatih

Spice Bazaar & Eminönü

Mısır Çarşısı

Smaller than the Grand Bazaar, louder, and the better of the two if you have an hour rather than an afternoon.

45 minutes in the bazaar, longer with the surrounding streets

How to arrive

Beşiktaş

Dolmabahçe Palace

Dolmabahçe Sarayı

The Ottoman court left the hilltop for the waterfront in 1856 and built something deliberately European, deliberately enormous, and lit by a four-tonne chandelier.

90 minutes to two hours

How to arrive

Beyoğlu

Galata Tower

Galata Kulesi

A fourteenth-century Genoese watchtower with the best three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view in the city — and a queue that forms two hours before sunset.

45 minutes including the climb and the deck

How to arrive

Beşiktaş

The Bosphorus & Ortaköy

Boğaziçi ve Ortaköy

The photograph everyone comes home with — a small baroque mosque on the water with a suspension bridge behind it — is taken from a square you can drive to in twenty minutes.

An hour at Ortaköy; half a day for the whole shore

How to arrive

Fatih

Balat & Fener

Balat ve Fener

The old Jewish and Greek quarters on the Golden Horn: coloured houses, steep lanes, antique shops and the least touristed morning you can have inside the historic city.

Two hours on foot

How to arrive

Mercedes-Benz S-Class on the Asian shore of Istanbul

Üsküdar

Maiden's Tower

Kız Kulesi

A small tower on its own islet in the middle of the strait, reached by a short boat from Üsküdar — and the only place that gives you the old city, the bridges and both continents in one frame.

An hour including the crossing

How to arrive

The old city of Istanbul above the Golden Horn

Fatih

Süleymaniye Mosque

Süleymaniye Camii

The architect Sinan's masterpiece, on the hill above the Golden Horn — larger and calmer than the Blue Mosque, and visited by a fraction of the people.

45 minutes with the garden and the terrace

How to arrive

See them with a car and chauffeur

Hourly hire keeps the same vehicle with you all day: purchases stay locked in the boot, the itinerary changes when you want it to, and nobody waits at a kerb.

Private city tours