Fun things to do in Istanbul

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Cicek pasaji.This places is renovated and turned the beauty like when It has been built.
It is on Istiklal Street and with full of restaurants inside it.

Frenc style Passage and connects fish marke to Main Street with covered shops.I recommend you to walk inside it for architecture and beauty of the building in the morning but nights
expensive and very touristy.

Opened in 1876, the 19th century Çiçek Pasaji can be described as a miniature version of the famous Galleria in Milan, Italy, and has rows of historic pubs, winehouses and restaurants.

The site of Çiçek Pasajý was originally occupied by the Naum Theatre, which was burned during the Fire of Pera in 1870. The theatre was frequently visited by Sultans Abdülaziz and Abdülhamid II, and hosted Giuseppe Verdi's play Il Trovatore before the opera houses of Paris.

After the fire of 1870, the theatre was purchased by the local Greek banker Hristaki Zoðrafos Efendi, and Italian architect Zanno designed the current building, which was called Cité de Péra or Hristaki Pasajý in its early years. Yorgo'nun Meyhanesi (Yorgo's Winehouse) was the first winehouse to be opened in the passage. In 1908 the Ottoman Grand Vizier Sait Pasha purchased the building, and it became known as the Sait Paþa Passage.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, many impoverished noble Russian women, including a Baroness, sold flowers here.By the 1940s the building was mostly occupied by flower shops, hence the present Turkish name Çiçek Pasaji (Flower Passage).

After the restoration of the building in 1988, it was reopened as a galleria of pubs and restaurants.

The most recent restoration was made in December 2005

If you go strolling through the nice park adjacent to the Palace you will come across this huge statue of Ataturk. So who was Ataturk you may ask? Well his original name was Mustafa Kemal and he was the first president of the Turkish Republic in 1923. As part of a push to westernize Turkey he required all Turks add a surname and he led by example adding the surname Ataturk to his name, meaning "Father of the Turks."

Ataturk brought Turkey into the western way of life by implementing a constitution, adopting the Gregorian calender, and the metric system.

Other reforms aimed at secularization which included: abolishing polygamy, getting rid of Islamic courts, and instituting secular law codes. He prohibited the wearing of the fez (traditional Islamic headware), closed religious schools, and legalized alcohol.

He did however make the country distinctly Turkish, by having the cities renamed to Turkish names, so Angora became Ankara and so on. Also, he banned the Kurdish language and had the call to prayer recited in Turkish rather than Arabic.

Women gained the right to hold jobs and were granted equality. Women's suffrage emerged in 1923.

One of the most notable things he did was replace the Arabic alphabet with a Latin version within two months. Making the works of ancestors undecipherable to later generations.

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It was Christmas day when we decided to visit the Orthodox Patriarche at Fener. My girlfriend stayed to watch the ceremony at St.George church and I walked around the area to take some photos.

Fener used to be a rich greek neighborhood after the 16th century but after 1955 most of the greek people “forced” to return in Greece (the same happened in Greece too but that’s another story). In our days the neighborhood is abandoned by the state and you can see only old houses, poor people on their way to open their small shops etc,

I enjoyed walking around… Don’t forget to see the Bulgarian Church in the area of Balat near by, it is a church made of iron!

The other obelisk in the Hippodrome is a pillar of stone masonry erected by Constantine VII (r. 911–55) in 944 C.E. It was originally sheathed in bronze plates bearing battle reliefs, but these were removed by the Venetians on their occupation and sacking of the city in 1204 and melted for the mint. Another prize captured during the wholesale pillaging by the Catholics was the bronze statue of four horses which escaped destruction but was taken to Venice and is now mounted on the Cathedral of St. Marks.

Beyazit Tower is located in the garden of Istanbul University and was used as a watch tower of sighting the outbreak of fires.
Built of wood in 1749, it was damaged, paradoxically, by fire and then torn down. It was rebuilt in 1878 by the edict of Sultan Mahmud II. The architect was Senekerim Balyan.
The 85 meter tower has a roof made of stone and a wooden staircase. It is still used as a watchtower today as well as for gathering meteorological data.

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The Valens Aqueduct (Turkish: Bozdoðan Kemeri) is an aqueduct in the European part of Istanbul, Turkey, constructed by the Romans during the 4th century.


Valens AqueductThe aqueduct usually called that of Valens (328 – 378) was actually completed in 368 during the reign of this Eastern Roman emperor, but certainly planned and begun already in the time of Constantine the Great (272 - 337) or his son Constantius II (317 – 361). The aqueduct was built as part of a new water supply system for Constantinople. Water from the Belgrad Forest beyond the city was carried over the aqueduct to the center of the city around the Great Palace near the Hippodrome. It was in use throughout the Byzantine and most of the Ottoman periods.

The aqueduct with double-tiered arches, which stretched across the little valley between two of the city's seven hills (Fatih and Süleymaniye), was originally over 1,000 m long and 26.5 m high in the middle. The impressive structure, still intact, has today a length of 971 m and a maximum height of only 20 m, since the surrounding ground level has risen up to 6 m. It was used during the Ottoman period for one branch of the Halkalý water supply system and repaired during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566) and later of Mustafa II (1695 - 1703).

The Istanbul Municipality extensively repaired the Bozdoðan Kemeri in recent years by replacing cracked stones, and exposed the parts that were formerly below ground level to reveal the original brickwork technique. Today, it spans over a major avenue that runs through the old part of city connecting Atatürk Bridge on the Golden Horn with the Aksaray quarter in the borough of Fatih. Since early 2007, the aqueduct is illuminated at night with an LED lighting system of changing colours

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This is a massive two storey Aqueduct that you pass through when you travel on the Bus up the Golden Horn.
It is quite old, being built in 368 by Emperor Valens who was killed in action three years after its completion. It is believed that Valens only restored an earlier aqueduct, built during the reign of the emperor Hadrian (117-138). A second tract was added by Theodosius I.

It has been repaired many times and was still in use in the 19th century, bringing water from Belgrade Forest to the centre of the great Palace Complex. The largest part of the aqueduct is a system of subterranean pipes, the arches are only a part of it. It is almost nineteen meters high.
The arches bridge the valley between Istanbul's Third and Fourth hills, and bring the water to a cistern built by Theodosius I near Beyazit Square.
Quite an achievment.

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Zeyrek is the one of the last remains of Old Istanbul.It s a poor quarter and still you can feel
old Istanbul spirit in those streets and lanes.Also it is in UNESCO world heraitage list as " historical areas of Istanbul" http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/356

After the Rebuplic Most of the part of the old city destroyed by the City Directors for building new roads and buildings.This Zeyrek quarter remained after "Ataturk Boulevard "construction in 1933.

I suggest you to go to walk in these streets .It s not very touristic and not well known.You will se new buildings and old istanbul houses standind together on those streets.

Also you will see the UNESCO signs on the some of the buildings.Renovation winds has starte on those street now.You can see lots of buildings under the renovating.20 years ago it was more natural for me.Because Renovations is for me rebuilding the house and it not standing as real as before.After the renovations houses look new.