Top Istanbul Private Sightseeing Tours

We booked this tour as part of a cruise stop in Istanbul. Our tour guide was a gentleman named Batu and we had a great and informative session. He arrived promptly at the meet up location at Galataport and proceeded to give a walking tour of the major highlights of Istanbul. We started with hopping on the T1 tram from the port to the Sultanahmet area where we paused for some turkish coffee (my wife needed a jolt of caffiene to start us off). Great experience watching the preparation and presentation/service. We proceeded to walk down to the Blue mosque, Batu guided us on dress code while giving us detailed history lessons of the buildings we were looking at. We visited inside the mosque and was awed by the beautiful designs. Next we visited the Obelisk of Theodosius and the German fountain on the hippodrome. My kids particularly enjoyed seeing the obelisk and hieroglyphics. We walked down to the Hagia Sophia next, where Batu helped with procuring tickets and dress code again. Once inside we spent probably close to an hour marveling at this ancient building that has changed hands so many times in history. We ended the tour with a walk to the Grand Bazaar, an epic feast for the senses! Batu showed us a few recommended stores for Carpets and leather goods. By now we had been walking almost four hours (with lots of stops for rest in the hot august temps as well as pictures) and we decided to wrap up the tour. Batu was able to help in getting a taxi to get us back to Galataport to get back on our cruise. Batu was patient, knowledgeable and helpful. He answered all our random questions and we were able to totally customize the tour to what we wanted to see/experience. I fully recommend this tour, you will not be disappointed!!

Fuat was punctual, kind, very knowledgeable easy to talk to talk to, his English was very good. We are very happy that we did a private tour with him it was totally worth it. We saw everything we wanted to see. I recommend him in Viator, Thank you Carole Hughes

I would highly recommend our tour guide Sabit Kara. He was very knowledgeable paced our tour well. We are older, and there was a lot of walking, but it was manageable because of breaks and finding shade in the blazing sun! He was so kind and helpful with taking pictures for us. He really helped bring the history alive with his explanations and narration. He was very flexible with the tour, whatever we wanted. I would highly recommend him.