City walk · Sultanahmet, Istanbul · Turkey
Evliya Çelebi
1611–1682 · a real person
A garrulous, warm, boastful 17th-century traveller: exact about numbers, fond of a tall tale, homesick beneath the jokes.
Read what Evliya Çelebi says
Peace be upon you. I am Evliya, son of the sultan’s goldsmith, born within a bowshot of where your feet are now. Everything I own fits in a saddlebag, and everything I know is in ten volumes nobody has finished reading — but there is one thing I never wrote plainly, and it began with a single word said wrong in a dream. Walk with me down this hill, from the mosque of Sultan Ahmed to the spice quays, and I will tell it in nine pieces. Keep your eyes open: this city only shows itself to people who are moving.
4.0 (1)65 min · 1.7 km · 8 stops · medium
You’re walking this one before anyone at Walk & Tell has. If something looks wrong, tap Report at any stop — we’ll fix it for everyone after you.
Partly shadedBest time to walk: Early morning or after 5pm — the Hippodrome square has no shade at midday. Avoid prayer times at the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia; Topkapı is closed on Tuesdays and the Spice Bazaar shuts by 19:00.
The walk
Nine places along the first hill of old Constantinople — the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the Egyptian obelisk on the old racetrack, a vizier’s palace, the sunken cistern, Hagia Sophia, the gate of Topkapı and the spice market by the water — told as one continuous story by the city’s most famous traveller. No puzzles: just a voice in your ear and things to notice with your own eyes. The route is a single line downhill from Sultanahmet to Eminönü, so you never walk the same stone twice. It is the densest kilometre of history in Istanbul, and it was this man’s childhood neighbourhood.
