Istanbul: A City on Two Continents

Byzantine cisterns, Ottoman mosques and a ferry ride between Europe and Asia that costs less than a cup of tea.

Istanbul is the only major city in the world that sits on two continents, and the most enjoyable thing about it is how casually the city treats that fact. Commuter ferries cross the Bosphorus from Europe to Asia every few minutes, packed with people going to work, and the fare is roughly the price of a cup of tea. We crossed almost daily for ten days and it never stopped being remarkable to us, even as it was clearly unremarkable to everyone else on board.

Sultanahmet: Fifteen Centuries in One Square

The Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque face each other across a park, and between them they cover most of the history that shaped this city. The Hagia Sophia was built as a cathedral in 537, became a mosque after 1453, was made a museum in 1935, and returned to being a mosque in 2020. Standing under that dome, which held the record as the largest in the world for nearly a thousand years, you can see all of those lives layered on top of each other: Christian mosaics uncovered beside Islamic calligraphy.

The Blue Mosque, properly the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, is a working place of worship with six minarets and more than twenty thousand hand-painted Iznik tiles inside. Both close to visitors during prayer times, both require modest dress, and both provide scarves at the entrance. Going early is the difference between a contemplative visit and a queue.

The Basilica Cistern

A short walk away, a staircase drops into a sixth-century underground reservoir held up by 336 columns, many of them salvaged from older Roman ruins. Two of them rest on carved Medusa heads, one upside down and one on its side, and nobody is entirely certain why. It is dim, cool and dripping, and it is the single most atmospheric thing in the old city.

Crossing to Kadikoy

The Asian side is where Istanbul stops performing for visitors. Kadikoy has a produce market, record shops, bookshops and a dense grid of small restaurants where the menus are in Turkish only. We went for the food market and stayed for the atmosphere, and it became the part of the trip we recommend most often. Moda, a short walk south, has a seafront promenade where the city goes to watch the sun set over the European skyline.

Eating Your Way Through the City

• Simit from a street cart, the sesame bread ring that fuels the entire city
• Balik ekmek, a grilled fish sandwich eaten standing up near the Galata Bridge
• Menemen for breakfast, soft eggs cooked with tomato, green pepper and chilli
• Manti, tiny lamb dumplings buried under garlic yoghurt and chilli butter
• Kunefe, shredded pastry over melted cheese soaked in syrup, served hot
• Turkish tea in tulip glasses, refilled constantly and almost never charged for

The Bazaars

The Grand Bazaar is one of the oldest covered markets in the world, with roughly four thousand shops under one roof. It is also, honestly, aimed squarely at visitors. The Spice Bazaar nearby is smaller and more useful, and the streets around Eminonu where locals buy hardware, fabric and kitchen supplies are more interesting than either. Bargaining is expected in the bazaars and nowhere else.

Getting Around

Buy an Istanbulkart from a machine at any station the moment you arrive. It covers trams, ferries, the metro, buses and funiculars at a reduced fare, and it can be shared between two people by tapping twice. Istanbul is enormous and hilly, and trying to walk between neighbourhoods on a map that looks compact is a common first-day mistake.

Where to Stay

Sultanahmet puts the major sights within walking distance, which is genuinely convenient for the first two nights. After that we would move. Karakoy, Galata and Cihangir are where the city feels lived-in, with better food and a shorter walk to the ferries. If you have a week, splitting your stay between the old city and one of these neighbourhoods gives you both versions of Istanbul.