Full day tour
starts: 09:00a.m., finishes: 05:30 p.m.
Tour features:
Spice market (closed on Sunday), Bosphorus Cruise, Asian part of the city, Bosphorus Bridge, Dolmabahce Palace (closed on Monday and Thursday).
Program:
Your private licensed tour guide will meet you at your hotel or cruise ship to begin your tour. Transportation is via modern, comfortable air-conditioned car, van or mini-bus, appropriate to the size of your group. After crossing Golden Horn Bay, which separates the modern and historical parts of the city, we will visit the Spice Market which was built as a part of the Yeni Cami complex and has since been an exciting covered market with the fragrant scent of spices from the Orient. Next, we will embark on a public boat and start our cruise of the Bosphorus Strait. The Bosphorus is a narrow, navigable strait between Europe and Asia connecting the Black Sea to Marmara Sea. It is about 20 miles long and varies between one-half and one and a half miles wide. This boat ride takes you past the late Ottoman Palaces, Dolmabahce and Beylerbeyi, as well as beautiful wooden mansions and modern villas of the 19th & 20th centuries which form this elegant section of the city.
We will disembark at Anadolu Kavagi, a former fishermen’s village, located at the Black Sea entrance of the Bosphorus Strait. This place is famous for its seafood restaurants, and we suggest that you have lunch on your own at one of them and order from their fresh fish menu. After lunch, we will take a walk to the ruins of Yoros Castle located on top of the hill. The castle built by Genoese settlers and dates back to 1190. The location also presents unparalleled views of Black Sea and Bosphorus.
Then we will be picked up by our vehicle, and continue with a panoramic drive along the Asian coast of the Bosphorus. Enroute we will visit the picturesque seaside towns of Kanlica and Cengelkoy. Kanlica is a typical and humble Bosphorus district, famous for it’s authentic buildings and for it’s yoghurt. Cengelkoy is one of the oldest and nicest residential districts along the Bosphorus. In Cengelkoy many mansions and summer residences were built during the Ottoman period and some of them still exist. Cengelkoy is also famous for its orchards.
We will return back to the European part of the city via the Bosphorus Bridge and visit Dolmabahce Palace. This palace was the residence of the last six Ottoman Sultans. The facade of the palace stretches for more than 1,200-feet on the European shores of the Bosphorus. Its vast reception salon, with 56 columns and a huge crystal chandelier, weighing four and a half tons and lit by 750 lights, never fails to astonish visitors.
As we finish the tour of the palace, we will stop for a glass of traditional Turkish tea at a beautiful tea-garden located within the palace complex. After this, we will return to the hotel or cruise ship.
Note:
Upon request, the Bosphorus cruise can be done with private boat
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