Europian Side of Istanbul (Part one)

Dolmabahçe Palace - 41.037270°, 28.995974°
Dolmabahçe Palace was ordered by the Empire's 31st Sultan, Abdülmecid I, and built between the years 1843 and 1856. Hacı Said Ağa was responsible for the construction works, while the project was realized by architects Garabet Balyan, his son Nigoğayos Balyan and Evanis Kalfa (members of the Balyan family of Ottoman court architects.) The construction cost five million Ottoman mecidiye gold coins, the equivalent of 35 tonnes of gold. Fourteen tonnes of gold in the form of gold leaf were used to gild the ceilings of the 45,000 square metre monoblock palace, which stands on an area of 110,000 m². It open to visit on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Saturday 09:00-15:00. It is closed to visit on Monday and Thursday..

Taksim Square and IstiklalStreet - 41.036064°, 28.985797°
You should see Taksim Square and Istiklal Street  if this is your first visit to  Istanbul.

Taksim Square (Turkish: Taksim Meydanı), situated in the European part of Istanbul, Turkey, is a major tourist and leisure district famed for its restaurants, shops, and hotels. It is considered the heart of modern Istanbul, with the central station of the Istanbul Metro network. Taksim Square is also the location of the Monument of the Republic (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Anıtı) which was crafted by the famous Italian sculptor Pietro Canonica and inaugurated in 1928. The monument commemorates the 5th anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, following the Turkish War of Independence.

Nişantaşı and Teşvikiye Street - 41.050782°, 28.992725° 

Nişantaşı is a quarter of Şişli district, Istanbul, Turkey, comprising neighbourhoods like Teşvikiye, Osmanbey, Maçka and Pangaltı. It includes the stores of world famous brands and has many popular cafés, pubs, restaurants and night clubs. Abdi İpekçi Street, Turkey's most expensive shopping street in terms of lease prices, stretches from the neighbourhoods of Maçka and Teşvikiye to the center of Nişantaşı

Ortaköy and Bosphorus Tours - 41.048389°, 29.027092° 

Ortaköy (literally Middle Village in Turkish) is a neighbourhood, formerly a small village, within the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, located in the middle of the European bank of the Bosphorus.

Tavacı Recep Usta– 41.075414°, 29.0018098°
Stuffed lamb ribs, stuffed mutton balls (a dish made of burghul minced onions and ground red meat) and semolina dessert with ice cream are little part of marvelous menu….

Tavacı Recep Usta is beaten track for many famous Turkish artists, politicians as well. `Tavacı Recep Usta` is now planning to open new branch in New York. 

İstinyepark AVM - 41.109704°, 29.031380°
One of the biggest shopping Mall in Istanbul, you can find more than 300 luxury shops there. You can see there many famous faces in café’s or shopping.

Emirgan Korusu - 41.111395°, 29.057330°
The Emirgan Park (Turkish: Emirgan Korusu or rarely Emirgan Parkı) is a historical urban park located in Emirgan neighborhood at the Bosphorus in Sarıyer district of Istanbul, Turkey. It is one of the largest public parks in Istanbul. Park is open for visiting every day between 09:00 and 23:00.  

The park, owned and administered today by the Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul, covers an area of 117 acres (470,000 m2) on a hillside, and is enclosed by high walls.

Inside the park with two decorative ponds are plants of more than 120 species. The most notable rare trees of the park's flora are: Stone Pine, Turkish pine, Aleppo Pine, Blue Pine, Eastern White Pine, Maritime Pine, Japanese Cedar, Norway Spruce, Blue Spruce, Atlas Cedar, Lebanon Cedar, Himalayan cedar, Beech, Ash tree, Sapindus, Babylon Willow, Hungarian Oak, Colorado White Fir, Maidenhair tree, California incense-cedar, Coast Redwood and Camphor tree.

SakipSabanci Museum - 41.106171°, 29.055822°
The Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum (Turkish: Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi) is a private fine arts museum in Istanbul, Turkey, dedicated to calligraphic art, religious and state documents, as well as paintings of the Ottoman era. The museum was founded by Sakıp Sabancı, and was opened in June 2002. Aside from permanent exhibitions, the museum also hosts national and foreign temporary exhibitions and, hosts cultural events on the weekends.

Çınaraltı Cafe - 41.104855°, 29.056531°


Cevahir AVM - 41.063559°, 28.991742°
The biggest shopping mall in Turkey, Second in the world. It is accomated in Şişli.

Aşşk (Love) Cafe - 41.057923°, 29.035620°
Kuruçeşme Aşşk* kahve opened its doors in August 1997, at a time when there were not many cafes alike in Istanbul, and quickly became very popular among people from different walks of life, who were in need of a relaxing, quality place, where they can eat light and healthy food, ...have good coffee and tea, and meet and socialize with different people.

Miniatürk Museum - 41.059119°, 28.950029° 

The park contains 120 models done in 1/25th scale. 57 of the structures are from Istanbul, 51 are from Anatolia, and 12 are from the Ottoman territories that today lie outside of Turkey. Additional space was reserved for potential future models. The infrastructure was built taking into consideration the needs of potential additions. Therefore, Miniaturk will continue growing, modeling, in a sense, planned urbanization.

Box offices are open during the following hours:

Weekdays : 09:00 – 17:00

Weekends : 09:00 – 17:00

Rope railway andPierloti Cafe - 41.049880°, 28.934021°
The famous cafe entitled with the name of Pierre Loti, a famous French writer, is reached on getting to this ridge on which the perfect view of Golden Horn can be watched.

Panorama 1453 Museum - 41.018519°,28.917697° 
You are invited to the Conquest of Constantinople!

This area, which fourteen years ago was a bus terminal, is today the location of Topkapı Cultural Park. On the left you can see the Edirnekapı Walls. Straight ahead, you can see the Topkapı Walls, the point where the Ottoman soldiers entered Constantinople. Here you can witness an important moment in history, the fall of Constantinople; it was this event that gave Sultan Mehmet II his title of Fatih (the Conqueror)..

Sur Ocakbaşı (Restoran) - 41.017647°,28.955518° 
Sur tavası ve büryan kebabı…

Eminönü - 41.016794°,28.974855° 
Eminönü is a former district of Istanbul in Turkey, now a neighbourhood of Fatih district. This is the heart of the walled city of Constantine, the focus of a history of incredible richness. Eminönü covers roughly the area on which the ancient Byzantium was built. The Galata Bridge crosses the Golden Horn into Eminönü and the mouth of the Bosphorus opens into the Marmara Sea. And up on the hill stands Topkapı Palace, the Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Camii) and Hagia Sophia (Aya Sofya). Thus Eminönü is the main tourist destination in Istanbul. It was a part of the Fatih district until 1928, which covered the whole peninsular area (the old Stamboul) within the roman city walls - that area which was formerly the Byzantine capital Constantinople.

Grand Bazaar - 41.009570°, 28.964130°
The construction of the future Grand Bazaar's core started during the winter of 1455/56, shortly after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. Sultan Mehmet II had an edifice erected devoted to the trading of textiles. In its name, Cevâhir Bedestan (English: Gems Bedesten; but also in Ottoman Turkish: Bezzâzistan-i- cedîd, meaning in English: New Bedesten) the word "Bedesten" is an alteration of the Persian word bezestan (bedesten), derived from bez ("cloth"), and means "bazaar of the cloth sellers". The building - named alternately in Turkish "İç" (English: Internal), "Atik" (English: Ancient), or "Eski" (English: Old) Bedesten - lies on the slope of the third hill of Istanbul, between the ancient Fora of Constantine and of Theodosius. It was also near the first Sultan's palace, the Old Palace (Turkish: Eski Sarayi), which was also in construction in those same years, and not far from the Artopoléia (Greek: Άρτοπωλεία) quarter, a location already occupied in Byzantine times by the bakers….

Galata Tower - 41.025836°, 28.973938°
The tower was built as Christea Turris (Tower of Christ) in 1348 during an expansion of the Genoese colony in Constantinople.The Galata Tower was the tallest building in Istanbul at 219½ feet (66.9 m) when it was built in 1348. It was the apex of the fortifications surrounding the Genoese citadel of Galata. The current tower should not be confused with the old Tower of Galata, an original Byzantine tower named Megalos Pyrgos (English: Great Tower) which controlled the northern end of the massive sea chain that closed the entrance to the Golden Horn. That tower was on a different site and was largely destroyed in 1203, during the Fourth Crusade of 1202–1204.