Best of Istanbul Half-Day Private Tour

My husband, friends & I booked Mustafa through Viator for a personal 2 day tour of Istanbul. Communication was excellent, he met us at our hotel & showed us all the sites we wanted in Istanbul. As we only had 2 days it meant we didn’t waste time working out how to get to places or navigating transport. We thoroughly enjoyed walking around the city where we could. Mustafa gave us options for walking/train and options for lunch. As entry wasn’t included in the price we could choose which places we wanted to see or not see on the day. Topkapi Harem & the Bospherous cruise were highlights for me, and walking down İstiklal Street to Galata after catching the funicular. A fabulous 2 days!

Amazing ! She was very detailed on history which I love !!

This was an informative, comfortable and enjoyable experience. We are familiar with Istanbul (and one member of the party is Turkish), but were visiting with friends who were visiting for the first time, and we wanted to have a day where we were led around and things were explained (in part so that we would not have to be the tour guides the whole trip). This half day trip was a good combination of the educational, the fun and the easy since the van took us to places that would have been hard and time consuming to get to on our own. I appreciate the knowledge of our guide, Tarik, and his flexibility in shaping an itinerary that was interesting to us and did not repeat things we had already done. We also appreciated being able to change the day and time of our guide when we realized we had a scheduling conflict and the fact that they were able to pick us up and drop us off at our hotel. Whether you have an itinerary in mind or need to rely on the service to recommend what to see and do, I strongly recommend this service as an orientation to the city.

I can't say enough wonderful things about our tour guide, Volkan, today! He was so knowledgeable about the history of everything we saw today. He had the best plan for seeing Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, Blue Mosque, and the hippodrome to try to avoid the crowds. We never had to wait in line with him. Having someone explain the importance of these old and historical sites was invaluable to us. He is so easy going and willing to adapt the tour to your wishes. He knew I was interested in the tile work so he took us to a pottery store where we saw a pot throwing demo and I was able to purchase some beautiful pieces. He was welcoming and personable and made the tour fun. You could tell he was experienced and loved helping his guests learn about Istanbul and its rich history. Truly outstanding tour day and worth every penny!

Kemal was a wonderful guide that gave insightful interpretation and anecdotes. He gave us great food recommendations as well!