Culture in Istanbul is stacked rather than spread. In Sultanahmet, Hagia Sophia carries Byzantine mosaics above Ottoman calligraphy roundels in the same room; Topkapı Palace holds the treasury and the harem quarters; and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts occupies a sixteenth-century vizier's palace on the Hippodrome, with carpets that begin in the thirteenth century. The Archaeological Museums nearby keep the Alexander Sarcophagus, carved in the fourth century BC and still showing traces of its original paint.

North of the Golden Horn the city turns modern. Istanbul Modern occupies a new waterfront building in Karaköy, the Pera Museum in Beyoğlu holds Osman Hamdi Bey's Tortoise Trainer, and SALT Galata works out of a former Ottoman bank. In Edirnekapı, the Chora building keeps some of the finest Byzantine mosaics and frescoes anywhere. Living crafts are more reachable than they look: ebru paper marbling, calligraphy and ceramics are taught in short workshops around Süleymaniye and Beyoğlu, and the Mevlevi sema is performed at the lodge in Galata.

Practical: most state museums close on Mondays and a few on Tuesdays, so check before building a day around one. The Museum Pass covers state museums but not private ones such as Pera or Istanbul Modern. Hagia Sophia and the working mosques close to visitors at prayer times and for longer around Friday midday; shoulders and knees stay covered and women use a scarf. Ask whether a workshop is taught in English before booking, and whether a sema evening is a religious ceremony or a staged performance, because both are sold under the same name.