Byzantine gold, Ottoman tiles and a contemporary scene shaped by private foundations, on two continents.
Turkey's first modern and contemporary art museum (2004), rehoused in 2023 in a Renzo Piano building on the Galataport waterfront, with a photography gallery and a library.
Justinian's church of 537, a mosque since 1453, a museum from 1934 and a mosque again since 2020. The mosaics are on the upper galleries.
A small Byzantine church by the land walls, whose 14th-century mosaics and frescoes are the finest of their age. Reopened as a mosque in 2024.
Orientalist painting, Kütahya ceramics and Anatolian weights and measures, in a 19th-century hotel building. Home of Osman Hamdi Bey's The Tortoise Trainer, Turkey's most famous painting.
The Vehbi Koç Foundation's contemporary art building of 2019, a tiled block in a working-class neighbourhood, with collection shows and performance.
A research centre and exhibition space in the former Ottoman Bank (1892), with an open archive of Turkish architecture, design and social history.
Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.
Orhan Pamuk's museum for the objects of a love story he invented, opened in 2012 in a wooden house: earrings, salt shakers, a dog figurine, and 4,213 cigarette butts.
A small mosque by Sinan of the 1560s above the spice market, covered inside and out with the finest Iznik tiles of the period.
Justinian's underground reservoir of 532, a forest of 336 columns in the water, some taken from older temples.
A hammam by Sinan from the 1580s, restored and reopened in 2012 under its original dome.
A crumbling 17th-century caravanserai behind the Grand Bazaar, where workshops still run. Its roof has one of the best views of the old city.
The modernist opera house of 1969 was rebuilt by Tabanlıoğlu and reopened in 2021, with a red sphere for its main hall.
Sinan's Selimiye Mosque, which he considered his masterpiece, about two and a half hours by road.
Wooden Ottoman villas and no cars, 90 minutes by ferry.
Hagia Sophia at opening → the Basilica Cistern → lunch → Rüstem Pasha Mosque → walk across the Galata Bridge → Istanbul Modern → up to the Pera Museum → the Museum of Innocence at dusk.