Half Day Private Istanbul Tour

Lovely day seeing some of the major attractions in the historical district of Istanbul. Our guide, Ugur was knowledgable and great to spend the morning with. Stray your day early to avoid the crowds. This is worth every penny.

This tour was perfect! Our guide, Celal, was friendly, witty, and knowledgeable. We appreciated all of his local knowledge, recommendations, and explanation of the history of Istanbul. He explained thousands of years of history in a way that was easy to understand. Best of all, the tour was flexible! He allowed us to choose our pace and where we went. I highly recommend!

It is filled with rich history and detail. The sights were amazing and the guide was knowledgeable, professional, friendly and went out of his way to accommodate us. His name was J. Good pace, inside, detailed knowledge, funny, interesting. We had a great adventure.

We had a wonderful tour with Cecal sharing the history of Istanbul and its unique location. A fascinating city and Cecal was happy to modify the tour for our interests as a family with young kids. Cannot recommend highly enough.

Excellent tour and guide. He picked us up at hotel and adapted to our needs. I didn’t realize that I would have to purchase tickets to all the attractions. Thought these were included in tour price. This made the tour more expensive than I’d anticipated.

Wonderful foot tour. Our guide Ipek was so knowledgeable and adjusted to our wants and needs. Saw so many beautiful things. Would highly recommend!

J (Celal) was a fantastic tour guide! He provided an educational and interesting tour of istanbuls most famous sites touching on its history and current events. He was flexible with pace and kindly escorted us to our dinner that followed the tour. Highly recommend this tour with J at the start of your trip so you can get a grasp at of this amazing city!

This was a wonderful way to see the most popular points of interest in Istanbul on a half-day tour. Uğur met us promptly and escorted us all over the old town while telling us historical facts of the city and country, not just the sites we visited. If we had longer in Istanbul, we would have loved to spend more time with him on a longer tour; he was wonderfully friendly, funny, and accommodating. He even took us to a local ice cream shop for delicious Turkish ice cream and baklava! Five stars for Uğur and this tour!

I’m going to start with our tour guide Uğur. Absolutely an amazing tour guide. He met us at the port and helped us understand the easiest way to travel around Istanbul. He helped us with our Türkçe. He even gave us pointers for another tour. An amazing man. He was passionate and extremely knowledgeable about the areas we visited. Our tour started in the large square next to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque where we learned about the intricacies of the German Fountain and Egyptian columns. From there, we moved to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, where Uğur provided a detailed history of the mosque. Inside the mosque was astounding. There were some 21,000 blue tiles along with other elaborate marble and stone. We then moved to the Hagia Sophia. At the time, it was under renovation so some of it was a bit hidden, but most of the historical areas were still well within view. Uğur, again, provided amazing insight into the history of Hagia Sophia. Also, don’t be afraid to ask him religious questions; he’s very professional. From there, we moved to the Basilica Cistern. This was an interesting look into how the Romans preserved their water supply and, of course, catching the Medusa statue and column pieces throughout. Because of my natural affection for Turkish lamps, Uğur took us to one of the manufacturers where we able to view a wide variety of lamps—some styles I had never seen before even with looking into the different shops. This was a nice experience that wasn’t a part of our original plan. Next up was Turkish ice cream and this most intriguing pudding. I won’t say much here, but to just try it. Lastly, we finished in the Grand Bazaar. Shops on top of shops. If you aren’t used to dealing with sellers trying their best, or maybe their worst who knows, then you may feel overwhelmed. Always keep in mind you can say no and haggle with them. Prices here will be higher, so just know you can always look elsewhere. I’ll conclude by again saying how helpful Uğur was for us. If you get him as your guide you will be very fortunate.

Ugor our guide was excellent. He was fully versed in the history of the city and gave us excellent insight to detail. He was most accommodating when time was short and when some attractions were closed he arranged alternative places to visit. We would highly recommended him to anyone. Thanks for your flexibility and desire to satisfy our needs. D&B