Istanbul offers a unique blend of history, culture, and breathtaking beauty. Immerse yourself in the city’s rich heritage, indulge in delicious Turkish cuisine, and explore its vibrant neighborhoods. This guide will take you through the city’s top attractions, hidden gems, and unforgettable experiences.
Living traditions and eco-innovation meet in Turkey’s most cosmopolitan center.
Istanbul’s waterways and narrow streets thread Europe to Asia in a tapestry of Ottoman palaces, slender minarets, and soaring plane trees. Yes, life in Turkey’s most storied city is breezily bicontinental, and locals have an enviable knack for layering fresh culture atop ancient heritage.
Sustainable journeys to Istanbul draw on that confluence. Here, travelers can merge ecological innovation with tradition, whether by sampling Anatolian wines at a Michelin Green Star restaurant, strolling between antique stores in stylish Cukurcuma, or buying artisan crafts from Balat district workshops.
And while Istanbul’s recent entrée into the EBRD Green Cities program signals a growing commitment to environmental design, its savvy travel advisors and guides have long championed eco-conscious exploration. The meandering streets in the city’s oldest neighborhoods, for example, are best visited on foot, and a network of public ferries, far from perpetual traffic snarls, links Bosporus-side districts. Below, more ways to plan an Istanbul trip while making conservation and local craftsmanship a priority.
High-end craftsmanship at Neolokal.
Eat and Drink
The Michelin Guide made its long-awaited Istanbul debut in 2022, awarding Turkey’s first Green Star to chef Maksut Askar’s Neolokal, a restaurant serving contemporary takes on the country’s rich gastronomic heritage. “To create a better future, we need to make our traditions sustainable,” says Askar, who sources ingredients for dishes such as morel-stuffed manti dumplings from small producers and strives to make his kitchen zero waste. Neolokal’s wine list highlights Turkish wine regions from Anatolia to the Aegean coast, showcasing rare and endangered grapes such as hasandede and cakal. At sister restaurant Foxy, a beloved wine bar in the Nisantasi neighborhood to the north of the old city, aficionados order from a bottle list sourced entirely from within Turkey.
Shop
Istanbul’s antique shops are a trove for sustainably minded travelers, who upcycle or preserve their finds. “Turkish culture has always prioritized beautiful design, exquisite craftsmanship, and high quality,” says Artisans of Leisure CEO Ashley Isaacs Ganz. “Shops and bazaars feature items that were meant to be passed down for generations.” Ganz recommends the chic A la Turca showroom, which curates precious carpets and kilims within the Cukurcuma antique district. Nearby, strolling through the cosmopolitan Beyoglu neighborhood leads to Sofa Art & Antiques, a thrilling jumble of gold jewelry, oil paintings, and brass sculptures.
While Turkish towels are plentiful in the labyrinthine fifteenth-century Grand Bazaar, travelers seeking artisanal versions should visit Jennifer’s Hamam in the smaller Arasta Bazaar near the Hagia Sophia. When owner and longtime Istanbul resident Jennifer Gaudet founded the shop in 2009, she discovered just a few weavers still hand-looming towels with techniques developed during the Ottoman Empire (factory-made textiles had pushed the craft nearly to extinction). Today, the shop and its three-story showroom support a network of in-house weavers creating sumptuous and colorful flat-woven towels, looped towels, and other textiles, all from organic Turkish cotton.
Other artisans sell right from their studios. “In Balat, there are small pottery shops and small leather shops. You can sit and see how they’re doing it – they like to chat,” says Yavuz Salataci, an Istanbul local and operations specialist for G Adventures. He recommends that guests on the four-day Classic Istanbul Mini Adventure use their free time for a craft-themed stroll through the vibrant Balat neighborhood overlooking the Golden Horn. For fine tiles and ceramics, Salataci prefers Firca Seramik in the neighboring Fatih area, where buyers source traditional pieces directly from the lakeside town of Iznik. Or head to Beyazit’s coppersmith market for another craft at risk of factory-made replacement: hand-hammered copper kitchenware from eastern Tukey’s renowned Gaziantep workshops.
Bosporus views from The Peninsula Istanbul.
Experience
Not all heirlooms fit in a carry-on: Souvenir minimalists and culture-curious visitors have ample opportunities to support traditional ways of life in Istanbul. The 65-room Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at Sultanahmet books tickets for travelers to watch Sufi practitioners’ (aka whirling dervishes) dancing meditations at Hodjapasha, a cultural center housed in a fifteenth-century hammam.
And as international travelers catch on to the breadth of Turkey’s patrimony, hotels across the city are introducing creative hands-on experiences. Guests at the 100-room Mandarin Oriental Bosphorus, Istanbul can take glassblowing workshops to create personalized versions of the good-luck charms known as “evil eyes,” a tradition rooted in ancient Mesopotamia. And in the bustling Galata neighborhood, the 177-room Peninsula Istanbul ushers visitors to the sixteenth-century Caferağa Madrasa to learn the art of ebru – a style of marbling perfected by calligraphers during the Ottoman period – now featured on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.
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Reference: [https://www.virtuoso.com/travel/articles/green-city-guide-istanbul]
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