How many days do you need in Istanbul?
Four days. That is the length of the itinerary we built for Istanbul.
Here is what each day holds. Every stop below carries its time, and every gap says how to get to the next stop, with the walk or drive time wherever both stops are mapped.
Istanbul · 4 days Türkiye
Best time: April to early June and September to October: warm, clear, and short of the July heat.
SultanahmetDay 1
📍8:30 AMHagia Sophia
Cathedral for 900 years, mosque for 500, museum, then mosque again since 2020. The dome still looks impossible.
🚶 ~3 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 0.1 mi
⛪11:30 AMBasilica Cistern
A sixth-century underground reservoir on 336 columns, two of them resting on Medusa heads laid on their side.
🚶 ~6 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 0.2 mi
⛪4:00 PMBlue Mosque and the Hippodrome
Twenty thousand İznik tiles inside; outside, the chariot-racing spine of Byzantine Constantinople with an Egyptian obelisk still standing on it.
Topkapı and the bazaarsDay 2
🏰9:00 AMTopkapı Palace
Four courtyards of Ottoman court life over four centuries. The Harem needs a separate ticket and is the part worth it.
🚶 ~22 min · 🚗 ~3 min · 0.8 mi
📍1:00 PMGrand Bazaar
Four thousand shops under vaulted roofs since the 1450s. Haggling is expected and the tea is genuinely free.
🚶 ~12 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.5 mi
⛪5:00 PMSüleymaniye Mosque
Sinan's masterpiece on the third hill, with a terrace looking over the Golden Horn. Calmer than the Blue Mosque and, most architects would say, better.
Bosphorus and BeyoğluDay 3
⛴️10:00 AMBosphorus ferry from Eminönü
A public ferry up the strait past wooden waterfront mansions and two continents. Sit outside; buy tea from the man with the tray.
🚶 ~12 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.4 mi
🏰2:00 PMGalata Tower and Karaköy
A 1348 Genoese watchtower with a 360-degree gallery, then the coffee roasters and design shops in the lanes below it.
🚶 ~16 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.6 mi
📍6:30 PMİstiklal Avenue
A pedestrian mile of nineteenth-century facades with a red vintage tram down the middle. Duck into the side passages, which is where the meyhane taverns are.
Asian side and BalatDay 4
⛴️9:30 AMFerry to Kadıköy
Twenty minutes to the Asian shore and a market district where locals actually shop. The produce, cheese, and pickle stalls are the point.
🚶 ~15 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.6 mi
🌆1:30 PMModa seafront walk
A residential shoreline of tea gardens and benches facing back at the old city skyline across the water.
🚗 ~20 min · 5.6 mi
📍5:00 PMBalat and the Chora mosaics
Back on the European side: painted houses in the old Jewish and Greek quarter, and Chora's fourteenth-century mosaics, the finest Byzantine work left anywhere.
This is how Petrel lays out a trip. Upload your own confirmations and it builds this for your dates: flights and hotels included, with live flight status and the travel time between stops.
This is one of 126 free itineraries. Open it, change anything you want, and it becomes your trip.