6 things to do in Istanbul

Istanbul's skyline is shaped by the voluptuous domes and pencil sharp minarets of some 500 mosques. The two biggest tourist hits in town are the 6 minareted blue-tiled Blue Mosque, with a capacity crowd of 40,000 and an acre of carpets to hoover, and the 6th-century St Sofia crowned by a 100-foot dome, an impossible span at the time.

But the one I urge you to visit is Sultan Süleyman's, the finest, most-perfectly proportioned of the lot, all the more amazing when you consider that its architect Sinan, the Norman Foster of the Ottoman Empire, never had a day's training in his life.

It is the indulgences of its sultans rather than their spiritual devotions that lie at the heart of our fascination with Istanbul. In the 16th-century, at the peak of their empire, Sultan Mehmet, aka ‘the Conqueror’, built Topkapi, a sprawling mini-city of a palace half as big as Monaco.

Its intriguing, slightly claustrophobic warren of rooms includes the harem and the dorms of the 300 concubines, the circumcision chamber and the flatlet belonging to the Chief Black Eunuch. There's also a museum encrusted in treasures from exquisite porcelains in the old kitchen where 800 cooks once stewed to a dagger studded with three emeralds the size of golf balls.

The Grand Bazaar, the world’s first shopping mall, is still without a single Gap or Benetton among almost 4000 lock-ups. The labyrinth of dome-capped alleys still bear the names of the clock makers, quilt makers and other founding trades although sadly the market is losing much of its ethnic cred to tourist trinketry.

The bazaar also has its own mosque, police station, health clinic, bank and several cafes serving scalp-lifting coffee; try and find Sark with its whirling dervish murals, old black and white photos of the Bosphorus and chaps smoking hookahs on magic carpets.

Forget the subway. Board a ferry to Uskudar, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, that 20-mile tail of slate grey sea, which segregates Europe from the rest of the world, the developed from the developing nations. You'll weave through a mesmerising choreography of ferries slaloming between fishing boats and massive cargo ships bound for ports on the Black Sea, the scene orchestrated by the muffled grunts and bellows of horns and klaxons.

Time for an Otto-style body job in the 300-year-old Cagaloglu Baths. ‘If you have not been here before,’ the poster claims, ‘you cannot be clean.’ The menu reads like an automatic car wash. The cleansing takes place in a vast grey marble chamber where shafts of sunlight pierce the hot, damp haze through stars and crescents in the cupola and drips of water resonate in synch with the masseurs’ smacks against the flesh.

As well as being acknowledged as being one of the world’s five great culinary traditions, Turkish eats are also remarkably inexpensive and part of Istanbul’s short break pleasures. Don't miss Pandeli 100-year-old blue-tiled restaurant right above the Spice Market; sea bass baked in paper is the house speciality. Another option, close to Galatasaray Square, is the Passage of Flowers (Çiçek Pasaji), a covered ‘Burlingtonesque’ arcaded street cheek by jowl not with florists but in fish restaurants. For a post-prandial hit of sweet go to Inci Pastenesi for profiteroles - it claims to have invented them!

Three nights B&B at the Sumahan on the Water costs from £820pp B&B inc flights, transfers and a private half-day guide with exclusiveescapes.co.uk