View Points

Which view do you actually want?

Istanbul does not have one view, it has three, and they are not interchangeable. There is the old city silhouette, domes and minarets stacked along a ridge, best read from a distance and from the other side of the water. There is the Bosphorus itself, which wants height close to the shore so you can follow the traffic of ferries and tankers. And there is the strait as geography: two continents in one frame, which only the high ground on the Asian side really delivers.

Choose the view first and the viewpoint second. Çamlıca Hill, at 268 metres the highest ground in the city, is the one that gives you the whole map at once. Galata Tower turns instead, offering a full circle from a single balcony, which is a different pleasure and a more crowded one.

Free, ticketed, or the price of a drink

Height in Istanbul is sold three ways. Çamlıca is public ground: you pay for the taxi up and nothing at the top. Galata Tower is ticketed, timed and popular, so it rewards booking ahead and punishes the walk-up at five in the afternoon.

The third way is the one most visitors miss. A rooftop bar or café charges you for a coffee and throws the view in. Try Sky Bar high over the European shore, or Mimar Sinan Roof looking back across the Golden Horn from the old city. Neither is cheap by café standards and both are cheaper than a ticket, with somewhere to sit for an hour.

Timing the light

Late afternoon is the hour that matters, but which side of the water you want depends on what you came for. The old city photographs best in silhouette, with the sun going down behind it, which means standing to the east, on the Asian shore, and arriving well before you think you need to.

If you would rather see the buildings lit than outlined, stay on this side: from Galata and from the ridge above the Golden Horn the late sun lands on the stone itself. Summer pushes the whole window past eight in the evening; by December it is over before five, which makes a winter afternoon the easiest sunset to catch and the coldest place to wait for it.