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First Day Istanbul Tour is excellent opportunity for Istanbul visitors who have limited time just to understand city in overall view with main highlights. At a Glance, Istanbul is a huge city located both on Europe and Asia. Therefore, it is not easy to explore and understand the city in a day. That is the city where had been the capital of big Empires for 1700 years. So we can say; it is the city of mystery with impressive Architectural Palaces, churches, mosques, synagogues, souks and many other things. In this tour we do only old city to visit most famous ones such as Topkapı Palace with Harem, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Ancient Hippodrome with Obelisk, Basilica Cistern.
It is a walking tour. Actually it has to be walking tour. All these places are in walking distance to each other and area is closed to traffic. So we suggest our guest not to have a private vehicle to hire for this day, if they want to visit only these places. May be only for transfer to /from this area or we can customize itinerary for our guests by adding some other places.
Our local guides are licensed and highly experienced knowledgeable about Istanbul, Turkey. Also We have priority to skip the ticket lines at the museums. We tell our guest to stop being a tourist and explore Istanbul like a local with our guides. Speed of tour, details of information, where to visit are all decided by our guests up on time of availability.
Sultanahmet old city Istanbul (Google Map)
30 Minutes Before Event Time
First Day Istanbul tour is an opportunity to embark on a captivating journey through Istanbul’s rich history and culture. We can start day around 09.00AM. Our guide will come to your hotel to pick you up which will be easier for you. Also it is a private tour. So, speed of tour, How much information you would love to have about places will be all your choices. You do not have to stick the itinerary. Whenever you want you can ask our guide to give a coffee break or lunch break. But please be sure, this is walking tour. Tour takes around 8 hours. But you can finish earlier or finish in 9 hours. Our guide will leave you to your hotel at the end of tour again. During day, what we need for;
We meet you at the lobby of your hotel to pick you up. And then you can walk to old city together or take a taxi, or public transportation to old city.
We can start with Topkapı Palace which will take longer time when you have energy enough. We visit, Topkapı Palace with Harem which takes around 2-3 hours. Ticket is 53EURO (2000TL) per person. We book it online not to wait on the ticket line. You can pay it to your guide in cash during day.
Hagia Sophia’s main gallery is opened only for prayers. So we can visit upper gallery by paying 25EURO per person. We can book ticket online not to wait on the ticket line. You can pay it to your guide during day.
You can taste the local food in a nice local restaurant.
It is called Sultanahmed Square today as well. It was the Hippodrome was looking like a stadium in U-shaped. It was the biggest meeting point of Byzantines. It is the place, where we can see German Fountain, Egyptian Obelisk, Serpentine Column
We visit Blue Mosque where you can see the beautiful Iznik quartz tiles of 16-17th centuries.
Basilica Cistern is an untouched Byzantine architecture. It was mentioned in the book of Dan Brown called Hell. And some famous movies were filmed here such as Inferno. It is famous with unique columns and Medusa Head reliefs on the blocks.
Grand Bazaar is like a trading city with its around 45000 stores, 67 streets inside. It is the center of unique Turkish Jewellers, Turkish Armenian styles of jewels, Hand made hammered silver wares, silver jewellers, hand made carpets, tiles etc. Of course there are many touristic stores. We suggest our guest to visit Grand Bazaar with guides first. Other wise, it becomes, overwhelming and too much hassling after half an hour. We do not do tourist trap tours. So you can be comfortable near our guide. Shopping will be done, if our guests ask to buy something. Otherwise even it is not asked to buy something.
