The Sultanahmet
District - Home to Istanbul's most visited and famous sites
picture courtesy
www.columbia.edu/
Istanbul's must see list includes a
visit to the sights below, all within reasonable walking distance from
one another. Undoubtedly you will be visiting at least one, if not all
of the places, especially if you are on a tour or other hotel-led visiting
type function.
That said, these places are also well
crowded with circles of multi-linguistic tour guides echoing the various
dates, histories, jokes, and the like. The park is also home to ubiquitous
Turkish salesmen as well, but with a little weathering and a strong
will you can get used to them.
If you are travelling apart from a
tour group you can often listen in and learn quite a bit from the educated
guides.
The Sultanahmet Meydani Park in the
main area of Sultanahmet was known as the Hippodrome and was the site
of bloody Byzantine sporting events and was based on the design of the
infamous Circus Maximus in Rome. Nowadays it's a pleasant park where
you can base your tour operations for all of the sites below. Be sure
and check out the grandiose obelisk "brought" from Egypt and
dating from 1500 BCE, as well as the wonderful Wilhelm II fountain which
was constructed in Germany and brought to Istanbul for the emperor's
visit in 1895. The fountain was built to show strength and unity between
Germany and Turkey against WWI allies.
To know where to eat in the area, look
at our Sultanahmet Restaurants page, with
our three most recommended restaurants (instead of a bland list of 1001
phone numbers).
Sights to see around
Meydani Park include (click on links to learn more about them):
Topkapi
Palace
Aya
Sofia (Hagia Sophia)
Sultan
Ahmet Camii (the Blue Mosque)
the Hippodrome (described
above)
Kapali
Carsi (Covered Market)
Yerebatan Sarnici
Museum of Islamic Art
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