Gardens

When are Istanbul's gardens at their best?

April is the loud answer. Emirgan Korusu is the centre of the city's tulip season, and for a few weeks the slope above the Bosphorus is planted in blocks of colour that draw half of Istanbul up the coast road. It is worth seeing and it is not a secret; go early in the day or go on a weekday.

October is the quieter answer, and for the Atatürk Arboretum it is the better one. Two thousand species turn at once, in a collection laid out for study rather than for strolling. Between the two, Gülhane and Yıldız hold up all year. Yıldız in particular is a hillside rather than a lawn, so it works in weather that would ruin a picnic.

The quiet hour

Istanbul's parks change character by the hour. From mid-morning they belong to families, tour groups and the tea gardens; before that they belong to whoever turned up. If you want the version of Gülhane that reads as the outer garden of a palace rather than a thoroughfare, you need to be there in the first hour it is open.

Yıldız rewards the early start most of all. The pavilions scattered through it, Çadır Köşkü and Malta Köşkü, were built as private retreats for a sultan who wanted to be out of sight, and at eight in the morning the park still performs that trick.

Getting there from Karaköy

These four are not one outing. Gülhane is the easy one: the tram from Karaköy runs to a stop at its gate, and you can fold it into any day spent in the old city. Yıldız is a short ride up the shore to Beşiktaş, close enough to combine with an afternoon on the Bosphorus.

Emirgan sits further up the same shore and deserves its own half day, particularly in tulip season when the traffic on the coast road is the real cost of admission. The Atatürk Arboretum is further still, out past the reservoirs toward the Belgrad Forest. It is a deliberate trip rather than a detour, and the one to save for a clear autumn morning.