Culture & history
Instant confirmation
Free cancellation up to 48h
Old City walk: Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Cistern
Rating 4.9 (862 reviews) Istanbul
from €65 per person
- Duration
- 6 hours
- Group
- Max 12 people
- Languages
- English, German
- Meeting point
- Sultanahmet Square
About this tour
A full day on foot through the historic peninsula with a licensed guide: Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome and the Basilica Cistern, with lunch in between.
- Hagia Sophia's upper gallery and its Byzantine mosaics
- The Blue Mosque early, before the queues
- Basilica Cistern and its Medusa heads
- Groups of 12 at most, with headsets
Sultanahmet packs Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Istanbul into a few hundred metres, and the hard part is making sense of it rather than finding it. We start early at the Hippodrome, where chariot races were held, and enter the Blue Mosque before the queues build. Hagia Sophia comes next, visited from the upper gallery where the Byzantine mosaics are. After lunch at a local lokanta we go down into the Basilica Cistern, built under Justinian in the sixth century to hold the city's water. The group stays at twelve, so everyone hears the guide and nobody waits long at the entrances.
What's included
- Licensed guide for the full day
- Lunch at a local lokanta with a soft drink
- Headsets so you can hear the guide in crowds
- Bottled water
- Not included: Entrance tickets to Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern
- Not included: Hotel pickup and drop-off
Where you'll meet
Meeting point
Your guide waits by the German Fountain at the northern end of the Hippodrome, holding a konuk sign. Please arrive ten minutes early.
Please be there 15 minutes early.
Good to know
- Mosques ask for covered shoulders and knees, and women cover their hair. We carry scarves if you need one.
- Mosques close to visitors at prayer times, and for longer at Friday midday; the order of visits changes to fit.
- Around 5 km of walking, much of it on cobblestones.
- Child: 4–11 years · Infant: 0–3 years, free
Cancellation policy
- More than 48 hours before
- Full refund
- 24 – 48 hours before
- 50% refund
- Less than 24 hours before
- No refund
Pay 30% now, the rest 7 days before your tour.
from €65 per person
