5 Slightly Off the Beaten Path Things to Do in Istanbul

When most people think Istanbul the images that come to mind are the Aya Sofia, the Blue Mosque, the Bosphorus...of course these are fantastic sights and I'm always happy to go back to the museums (especially since thanks to my Museum Card I don't have to pay for most of them!) but there are so many other things to do and see here that get overlooked.

1. Markets

Shop like a local and visit some of the weekly markets around the city. Some of the markets are largely food but some of them carry everything and anything you could possibly think of...and some things you can't.

Fatih Çarşamba (Wednesday) market is one of the latter, you can find just about anything at this market. It spreads out behind the Fatih mosque so if you're unfamiliar with the area it's probably easiest to take a cab.

Beşiktaş Saturday market  - located between Taksim and Örtaköy, you can either walk to this one down Dolmabahçe Cd then up Şair Nedim Cd, or take bus 43 from Taksim and get off at Ihlamur, or take a cab.

Inebolu - This Sunday market starts early (around 6) and closes early (4). It's worth the early wake up to get to this one though. Vendors from Turkey's Inebolu Black Sea area set out late Saturday night to set up their wares in Istanbul's sketchy Kasımpaşa neighborhood on Toprak Tabya Sokak, Kucuk Piyale. 

Besiktas Saturday market

Yeşilköy's market is also on Wednesday. In a classier area of town this 2,000 stall market offers a variety of products and vendors who take credit cards. Take the 72T from Taksim or the 81 from

Eminönü and get of at the Park stop. Alternatively you can take the inner city train from Sirkeci and get off at Yeşilköy where apparently there is a free transfer service.

If you're looking for a market on the Asian side then head to Kadıköy on Tuesday or Friday. The Kadıköy market is huge with over 4,000 stalls, many of them run by women. To get there from the European side take a ferry from Karaköy or Eminönü then take cab or bus 8A to Mandira Caddesi or S.Er Bulent Altinsoy station. 

2. Wander!

 Get lost, it's ok. If you're worried about getting lost make sure to get a business card from your hotel and carry it with you to show cab drivers. For me though, wandering is the best way to learn a city.

Istanbul has some amazing architecture, much of which is sadly deteriorating.Wandering is also a great time to take advantage of Turkey's tea culture. Stop in a tea house for a rest, a game of backgammon, and chat with some locals.


3. Dolphin watch

Sadly I don't have any pictures of dolphins. It seems I never have my camera on me. Dolphins are not an uncommon sight while traversing the Bosphorus. Even if you don't see them though, it's always fun to ride the vapur and enjoy a çay and a simit.

4. Kariye Müzesi

The Kariye Müzesi, or (St. Saviour in) Chora Church is my favorite of the Istanbul museums. It's probably the best example of Byzantine art and architecture left in Turkey and while it may be a mere fraction of the size of the Aya Sofia, its mosaics and frescos are far better preserved. You also won't have to Photoshop out of your pictures as many other tourists. Given its not central location, the Kariye Müzesi is not as well visited as are other museums.

It's a bit of a trip but totally worth it. To get there, take the tram to Topkapı stop then switch to the light rail and get off at Edirnekapı. From there, walk to the nearby, large intersection where you will take your life in your hands and cross Turkish-style (ie sans signal and crosswalk) and you'll start seeing signs for the museum.

5. Eyüp Cemetery

Nearby the Kariye Müzesi is Eyüp. While it sits outside Istanbul's ancient city wall, Eyüp is of huge importance to the city. It is home to the Eyüp Sultan mosque, the burial place of Eyüp Ensari, standard bearer of the Prophet Mohammed. In addition to visiting the mosque, Eyüp's market area and main square are a much quieter cousin of those in Sultanahmet and are a nice break from that area's tourist experience. 

In addition, the Eyüp cemetery is famous for its highly decorated grave markers and shaded pathways. Even if you can't read the old Turkish script (similar to Persian) you can tell a little about the person buried there by the decorations. A woman's marker will often be decorated with flowers, one for each child. Fez's adorn the grave markers of a paşa, the size of a turban reflects a man's status, and third type of hat (for which I don't have a name) indicates the grave of a member of a Sufi order. However all three of those headgear having been banned at one time or another you don't see them on the more modern graves.

There are a lot of ways to get here. If you're already at the Kariye Müzesi you could actually walk, take a ferry, or hop in a cab. But if you're starting from a little farther away take the ferry from Karaköy or Eminönü.

Whether you walk up through the cemetery or take the cable car, the views at the top are spectacular and it's worth the climb to sit and have a tea while taking it all in.

Besiktas Saturday Market

I can't believe I've lived here for as long as I have without exploring the various markets around the city. I have recently started to rectify this situation with a visit to the Besiktas Saturday market.

Even though we went fairly early in the day it was a hot walk. The market is only a few kilometers from my apartment and taking a bus along Dolmabahce Caddesi on a Saturday is really a fruitless endeavor. After you get crammed into the unairconditioned bus like the proverbial sardine you're held captive by the traffic and you may as well have just walked anyway. Especially since Dolmabahce Caddesi is probably one of the few streets in the city with proper sidewalks and it's all pretty and shaded by the trees that line it.

I love the way the above picture turned out-a total accident but it gives an idea of the market's pulsing and slightly frenetic energy.

We eventually made our way up Dolmabahce Caddesi to the turn off on Sair Nedim Caddesi. The Guide Istanbul says it's a short walk up this street...which might be true if you're a giant and take strides 3-4 times the size of a normal person. We started to think we might have missed the market. I was just about to stop and ask somewhere when we spotted the market-which is essentially a parking structure that's been covered with white plastic sheeting. I don't really know what exactly I was looking for but it wasn't that. Although if someone had told me to look for that it would have made spotting it a lot easier!

I really had no intention of buying anything. I have a few decent greengrocers (manav) near my place but when we got into the market I couldn't resist the draw of the piles and piles of produce. We bought bunches of herbs (mostly basil and parsley for making pesto), artichokes, cherries, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, tomatoes, and I even gave in and forked over the insane amount for some precious asparagus.

The market isn't only fresh produce. There were numerous stalls with dried herbs, nuts, dried fruits, and something that was pretty similar to a CornNut. Those I managed to say no to, which was pretty hard, but I did get some walnuts and dates.

Corn makes me sad. I miss sweet corn. They eat field corn here. Shudder.

Grape leaves!

Besiktas market also has a few stalls with fish, flowers (for which I'll return when my terrace renovations are complete), and the second floor is largely clothes and household goods.

Besiktas is a little far for me to schlepp every Saturday but I haven't yet visited the Tarlabasa Sunday market and that's much closer to home!

Prague and the Christmas Market

So Prague. I don't really even know where to begin! Prague has been on my travel wish list since high school and it was just so exciting to be able to visit. Especially at Christmas!  But before we get to the Christmas market we must first explore Prague itself. Because any city that randomly has water gnomes hanging out in its rivers is entirely worthy of exploration.

The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square is one of Prague's most well known sights. Every hour crowds gather to watch Death ring out the time accompanied by a parade of the Twelve Apostles at the top of the tower.

Crowds gathering to watch Death ring the hour

Death ringing the hour

The clock is not Old Town Square's only site though. The large Hussite church of Saint Nicholas takes up one corner of the square.

While the spires of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn dominate the center of it. The square is rung with shops, hotels, and restaurants housed in beautiful, colorful buildings.

Prague was once one of the most important cities in Europe and was large and bustling while London and Paris were still villages. Because finding one's way could be very confusing, house signs were added to a lot of old buildings to make finding an address easier. Among the house signs we saw were: a trio of violins (3 generations of violin makers), a unicorn that looked more like a mutant sheep, a mermaid, and my favorite adorns the wall of the first Cubist house; the Black Madonna.

I tried to prepare for the cold in Prague. The week before I left Istanbul was enjoying a pretty balmy November with temperatures as high as 17C/63F. Thanksgiving was pretty chilly at 7C/45F but I hadn't even taken my winter coat out of storage before getting ready for Prague.

You can see everyone's wrapped up!

I was glad that I'd not only got out my winter coat but also packed silk long underwear, two pairs of of leggings, two pairs of gloves, a scarf, and enough socks to keep my feet warm because it was a chill 2-4C/35-39F in Prague! Thank goodness for a sensible city with no open container laws and stands every couple feet selling mulled wine and hot chocolate! I think our favorite mulled wine stand was one near the Charles Bridge where you could garnish the wine to your own taste with sugar and various fruits. Once I feel like making a trek out into the thundersnow Istanbul is currently experiencing to pick up some wine I'll start my own gluhwein production!

And despite the cold I also walked around my last day with several pints of the most delicious (hard) cider I've ever had. I really wish I could get Kingswood cider in Istanbul! Even if not for the bargain price of $2 per pint.

I loved the small square just before the Charles Bridge. The Catholic churches of Saint Francis of Assisi with it's pink and green dome and Holy Savior with all its statues, statue of Charles IV in the foreground, and the Torture Museum off to the right...I think I took about 20 pictures of this square alone. I took a ridiculous number of pictures of the Charles Bridge which gets its own post.

The Prague Castle, i.e. that entire complex on the hill, is the largest castle compound in the world. It contains several palaces, outbuildings, museums, and two churches. Dominating the hill is the Cathedral of Saint Vitus, which also gets its own post because I took something like 260 pictures of it. Only about five are worth anything but it still gets its own post.

View of the Vltava River from the Charles Bridge

Crossing the Charles Bridge gets you to Lesser Town which, kind of ironically, is now the more expensive part of the city. And Lesser Town, much like Mykonos, has its own Little Venice. This water way, now the home of the jaunty water gnome at the top of the post, used to power mills.

They're big fans of John Lennon here. Not only was there a John Lennon pub just after crossing over the waterway, there's also a wall, which actually belongs to a Catholic monastery, that has been covered with messages and art dedicated to him.

The first time we trudged up to the Prague Castle I was feeling pretty ungracious about hills and having to walk up them. In my defense, we were at the tail end of a four hour walking tour and we had already done some pretty serious walking. I went up again a few days later to visit the Cathedral of St. Vitus again and the hill seemed quite innocuous that time.

It's at least a pretty climb. the buildings lining the hill, a couple of them embassies (this the flags) were lovely. And the view of the street down was alone worth the small climb.

Back in Staro Mesto (Old Town) I was completely disturbed to be confronted by an entire theatre devoted to puppets. I may not have full on automatonphobia (fear of puppets) but the freaking creep me the hell out. Marionettes, which you can buy EVERYWHERE here, are only slightly less scary. But if I'm going to see Don Giovanni I'd rather see it sung by opera singers and not acted out by creeptastic marionettes, thank you very much.

Along that vein though, Prague had concerts galore! I'm not sure if that's specific to Christmas market season or not, but we could have attended two-three a day if we really wanted to. In the end I only went to two. I went with my friends to a fantastic concert in the Spanish Synagogue. The Spanish Synagogue was absolutely stunning. Done, apparently, in the Moorish revival style, it was an amazing setting for a string quintet sometimes accompanied by a really good soprano. I also went to a concert at the Saint Michael the Archangel Monastery. While the musicians were equally as good the soprano was a disappointment and had me cringing during her Ave Marie. *Shudder*

Prague State Opera House

One of my favorite sites in Prague was the State Opera House. One of my favorite movies growing up, and still actually, is Amadeus. Which was shot in Prague. It was the first American movie filmed in Prague actually while Czechoslovakia was still under Communist rule. Not only was it shot in Prague, many scenes were filmed in the State Opera House where Mozart's Don Giovanni originally premiered. It was a very geeky excitement I was feeling.

The 'Powder' Tower

What was the main reason for meeting two of my friends in Prague for a long weekend? The Christmas Market! For the last couple years my friend Sarah has visited a Christmas market somewhere in Europe and now that I'm ever so much closer to Europe than I used to be, I met her in Prague for this one.

Mostly we wandered around the market set up in Old Town Square but stalls could be found in just about all the squares around the city. I lusted after a lot of the ornaments but thought better of bringing them home. My cat Sherlock's second favorite activity is to knock anything and everything off tables, shelves, beds, chairs, etc. I can't count how many times I've yelled "Sherlock, you leave the Virgin Mary/Jesus (statues) alone!" So putting out delicate, handmade Christmas decorations was pretty much off the table. Pun intended.

I was able to at least honor the food vendors though! In addition to the cider, mulled wine, and hot chocolate there was barrel bread, sausages, and roasted pork to be enjoyed!

Trdlo-barrel bread

I'm afraid I may have over enjoyed the abundance of pork though. It's not exactly on every street corner in Turkey so when it was literally on every street corner (either in a restaurant or street stall) in Prague I went a little...hog wild shall we say?

That's us in the Christmas bulb!

Prague really turns it out for Christmas too! Not only were the squares done up for Christmas, but so were hotels, restaurants, and streets. There were random Christmas trees everywhere but Old Town Square housed the mother of them all.

You can't really tell from the picture but it was decorated with a clock theme to match the nearby Astronomical Clock!

After having this city on my travel wish list for so long I am happy that it did not disappoint! It's a pretty walking friendly city which I always appreciate but there is a metro and plenty of trams for easy access. People were super friendly and while they speak better English than many of the native speakers I knew growing up, they always seemed pleased when you could break out a 'thanks' or díky in Czech.
I will definitely visit again, regardless of season.