1 – Miss Pizza
A small pizza house in Cihangir with a cosy atmosphere serving delicious thin crust pizza. Pizza with zucchini and pizza with artichoke(!) are the most recommended ones. Turn left when you come to Cihangir from Taksim Sq. through Sıraselviler; it’s just on the second left street.

2 – Pizzeria 14
Another small pizza house offering tasty pizza with various choices from marine (with crab, smoked salmon and rocket) to marinara (no cheese, only tomato , pesto and thyme). It’s in Nisantası – Guzelbahce Street No.14 very close to American Hospital.

3 – Pizzeria Pidos
Pizza house with menu of great variety of delicious Italian food from salad to deserts. Pizza Filetto – with filet, rocket and mozarella – is highly recommended. It’s very close to Taksim Square, in Dunya Saglik Street No 13 Gumussuyu.

4 – House Cafe
Choose pizza from the extensive menu of House Cafe – Ortakoy and you won’t be sorry at a “feel at home” atmosphere and a wonderful sea view. House Cafe has many other branches for example in Beyoglu – Tunel, Tesvikiye and on the Anatolian side in Caddebostan (also a seaview). Check here for all branches.

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Most sections of Istanbul are not very suitable for cycling because it’not a city located on a plain ground and also the motorways do not allow cyclers to ride safely in all that mess. But we can stil recommend you a few routes to enjoy a bike tour, but you should be careful because the car drivers are not very familiar with bikers. Always wear your helmet and ride safely.

1 – Buyukada (Princess Islands)
You’ll see many bike renting shops in the center of Büyükada close to the marina. There are two routes for biking: One of them is Büyük Tur, which tours around the coast of the island (12 km), and Küçük Tur which is about half of the other one. With the longer route; you will have the chance to see the non-residential area of the island with a wonderful Marmara view. If you are couple, you can choose the tandem bikes. The cost is around 10 TL for a couple of hours.

2 – Kartal – Fenerbahce
The 10 km coast on the Anatolian side, has a designated road on the pavement for bikers, so you can enjoy the view of the Princess Islands and the Marmara Sea while riding your bike.

3 – Beşiktaş – Belgrad Forest
It’s a difficult route first strating in Beşiktaş from the harbour passing through Ortakoy, Arnavutkoy, Bebek and Istinye on the motorway with a wonderful Bosphorus view; then from Ferahevler to the inside of Belgrad Forest. The route takes about 3 hours one-way with a few breaks to rest; and you should better have a mountain bike to ride in the pathways of Belgrad. There are many cafes in the coast to chill on the way back to Beşiktaş.

4 – Polonezkoy BMX Cycle Track
If you like adrenaline and would like to jump on the hills and ramps of a cross track built inside the forest of Polonezkoy, this place is for you. Official races are also held here from time to time. Please find more information about the track here and about Polonezkoy here.

There are many great mosques in Istanbul and we strongly suggest to visit at least two of them before leaving Istanbul to feel the soul of orientalism in this magnificent city.

1 – Proper dress code

As the mosques are the places of worship for Muslims, firstly your dress code needs to fit the place. It is better for ladies to have clean loose shirts, pants or long skirts and a scarf to cover their hair, for gentlemen clean shirts and long pants are required. Actually for summer you may enter some of the mosques with shorts but it is not guaranteed.

2 – Get ready to take off shoes

Wearing shoes are not allowed in all mosques,  you need to leave them in a cabinet at the entrance or you can hold them, it is fine in summer but for winter if you will visit a mosque it is better to have extra socks with you to keep your feet warm.

3 – Be quiet

In mosques women and men have separate sections to pray, loud talking and discussion within the mosques are forbidden, additionally it is believed that it’s disrespectful to walk in front of a Muslim during his pray.

 4 – Cleaning ritual

Before praying all Muslims required to be clean themselves  that all mosques have  a nice section for this ritual, you will see many artistic fountains and marmor samples which  can be interesting as much as the mosque.

1 – Balad

Poet says ‘ If İstanbul is a mermaid than Balat will be her smile ’. It has cute narrow streets which ends to Golden horn with beautiful wooden old houses. People from different cultures and religions are mixed for centuries (Jewish, Armenian, Greek, Muslim) in Balat that you will also find many small churches next to small mosques and we guarantee that you will shoot many nice photos if you walk through in this nice neighborhood.

2 – Kuzguncuk

Another old Istanbul neighborhood located at the Asian side on the shore, it is not easy to reach there from the city center but it is worth it. Kuzguncuk is a calm place with its cats and very friendly residents; nice smell of the sea will be mixed with nice smell of fresh bakeries. If you get tired to walk around the old houses, you can have a cup of coffee at Sitare, very comfortable cafe with nostalgic decoration and delicious tastes.

3 – Samatya

Here is another historical neighborhood located very close to the old city. Many years Jewish, Armenian and Turkish people lived together in Samatya where as now most of them moved to other parts of Istanbul but outstanding churches are still standing with all their memories. It has also very nice small Bazaar at the center that you can enjoy a whole day watching people around.

** Samatya picture from ” a cup of caffein blog”

4 – Beyoglu ; 

Here we are again back to Beyoglu very popular pedestrian street close to the Taksim square, if you need a shooting that includes all colors this is the place you are looking for. You will find detailed information about Beyoglu if you click on “Beyoglu” tag below.