Istanbul in 3 days: a self-guided itinerary

Arrive early, while the square is still quiet. The building has served as a church, a mosque and a museum, and today it is again a working mosque, so the visit is shaped by worship rather than by a museum route. Look up at the dome from the visitor area and take your time with the light falling through the windows.

Walk across the square to the mosque known for its blue tiles and its six minarets. The courtyard alone is worth a slow lap. Inside, the visitor section sits behind a barrier so that worshippers keep the main floor; stay quiet and keep your phone low.

Before the palace, this separate museum on the square explains how the building beside it was raised and changed over the centuries, with models and digital displays. It is a useful way to understand what you saw in the morning, and it keeps you out of the midday sun.

Ride one or two stops down the hill to the Sirkeci side, where side streets are full of small places serving soups, kebabs and set lunches for people who work nearby. Eat where it is busy with locals. From here the palace gate is back up the hill.

For centuries this was the seat of the Ottoman sultans. Walk through the courtyards in order, from the public outer court to the private terraces at the far end, where the view opens over the meeting of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. The Harem is a separate section; decide before you buy whether you want it.

Leave the palace through the outer court and walk down into the park, once part of the palace gardens. Plane trees, benches and tea gardens make it the easiest place on the peninsula to sit down after a long day of walking.

End the day on the water, the way Istanbul commutes. The ordinary city ferry crosses from Europe to Asia in a short ride, with the old city skyline behind you and gulls following the boat. In Kadıköy, walk up from the pier into the market streets for dinner.

Enter through one of the old gates and let yourself get a little lost. The covered streets are grouped by trade, so carpets, lamps, jewellery and leather each have their corners. Window-shop first and buy later; bargaining is expected in many shops, and a smile goes further than a hard number.

Climb north through the streets behind the bazaar to the great mosque that crowns the third hill. Its courtyard and garden terraces look out over the Golden Horn, and the complex around it shows how a mosque once sat at the centre of schools, kitchens and baths.

Walk downhill through the busy wholesale lanes to Eminönü. Have lunch in one of the small places near the water, then wander through the Spice Bazaar for dried fruit, tea, coffee and Turkish delight. Ask before you photograph a stall.

Cross the Golden Horn on foot. Anglers line the upper deck all day, and the views back to the mosques on the hills are some of the best in the city. The lower level is lined with fish restaurants if you want a tea stop.

Walk up the steep lanes from Karaköy to the medieval tower above the old Genoese quarter. From the gallery at the top the whole city opens up: the peninsula you walked yesterday, the Bosphorus ahead of you tomorrow.

Walk back down to Karaköy and ride the historic underground funicular up to the top of Beyoğlu. It is one of the oldest underground railways in the world and saves you the steepest climb of the day in a couple of minutes.

Stroll the long pedestrian avenue from Tünel to Taksim Square. Duck into the arcades and passages off the main street, where old cinemas, bookshops and meyhanes hide behind narrow doors. Dinner is easy anywhere in the side streets.

The later Ottoman palace on the European shore feels nothing like Topkapı: European-style halls, a famous crystal staircase and a ceremonial hall under a vast chandelier. Arrive when the ticket offices open so that you finish in time for the ferry.

Walk to the Beşiktaş pier and board the public long cruise. The boat zigzags between Europe and Asia, past waterside mansions, fortresses and villages, all the way to the last stop near the mouth of the Black Sea. Find a seat outside on the side facing the shore.

The cruise waits at the last village on the Asian shore. Have a slow fish lunch by the water, then walk up the hill behind the village for a view towards the Black Sea, or simply sit with a tea and watch the ships go by.

The return trip retraces the route in the softer afternoon light. It is a good moment to look again at the shoreline you saw from the palace in the morning, and to pick out the bridges and the old city skyline as the boat comes back into the Golden Horn.