A hectic 24 hours in Istanbul

21.07.2023 - 07:53 / roughguides.com / Greg Dickinson / Sherlock Holmes

From Europe to Asia and back, Greg Dickinson finds a full 24 hours worth of things to do in Istanbul .

It is 8am and I’m lurking on Kabataş pier with a few friends, blissfully somnambulant having not had my first Turkish coffee of the day yet. A gang of suited commuters disembarks from a passenger ferry and marches towards Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi, a street swollen with taxis and mopeds.

Once the crowd has dissipated the first mate offers us a friendly hand onto the boat, called Zoe, which chugs out into the Bosphorus. Hugging the European waterfront we cruise past the old seat of the Ottoman Empire – the Dolmabahçe Palace– and towards the Rumelihisarı fortress, also known as the «Fortress of Europe», then we cross to Asian Istanbul and peer nosily into the exclusive waterfront properties.

Image by Greg Dickinson

When the engine stops our captain runs to the deck and points into the water; two dolphins are curving in and out of the blue just beneath the Bosphorus Bridge. My 24 hours awake in Istanbul has only just begun and I’m already besotted. But there’s no time for romance, as I’ve booked a late morning slot at Istanbul’s most surreal attraction.

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The nerve-wracking narrative of istrapped starts ten minutes before we’ve even arrived, as the heavens open above Beyoğlu and we have to sprint from doorway to doorway until we eventually find the entrance – signposted only by a small buzzer. A voice crackles through the speaker: “is your team ready?”.

After climbing two flights of stairs I open a heavy door which slams behind us. We are locked in a room, drenched, and clueless as to what is about to happen. When the lights go out I begin to question whether the thunderclaps we can hear are real or all part of the experience.

For the next hour we solve a series of interconnected cryptic puzzles – encompassing everything from a portrait of a monkey to a UV torch – in a bizarre, semi-hallucinogenic experience that can only be compared to playing the Crystal Maze in Sherlock Holmes’s house.

Finally we escape, albeit just in time, to find the puddles already evaporating under the Istanbul sun.

Our clothes have fully dried by the time we’ve strolled towards the Spice Bazaar near the Galata Bridge where I am greeted by Selin, founder of Turkish Flavours and one of Istanbul’s top culinary experts. She guides us into the market hall where I’m smacked by a riot of sounds, smells and colours. Gravity-defying heaps of spices and Turkish delight line the thoroughfare, while stall-owners shout “Russian?”, “Italian?”, “Dutch?” at us (although interestingly never “British?”).

Image by Greg Dickinson

During our whistle-stop