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Republic Day in Istanbul falls on Thursday, 29 October 2026. It is the one night of the year when the whole city turns towards the Bosphorus. Turkey's most important national holiday marks the proclamation of the Republic on 29 October 1923, and 2026 is its 103rd anniversary. Istanbul celebrates with a morning ceremony in Fatih, free concerts in the squares and an evening light and fireworks show over the water. For visitors that means two...

Visiting Hagia Sophia in 2026 is easier than the queues suggest, as long as you know three things before you leave your hotel. The €25 ticket covers only the upper gallery. The building runs on prayer times, not museum hours. And since 1 October 2026 the car-free zone around it has grown to include the Cankurtaran hotel streets. This guide covers the current ticket rules, the dress code, Friday closures and the dome restoration. It...

Torrential rain that began on Tuesday and peaked on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, caused the worst Istanbul floods in decades, swamping homes, roads and underpasses across Türkiye's largest city. On Thursday the Istanbul Governor's Office reported three deaths and four people missing. Schools are closed on Thursday and Friday, motorcycles are banned from traffic, and Governor Davut Gül has said the rain could continue for another two to three days.This page brings together what has...

October is the month Istanbul stops performing and gets on with being a city. The heat has broken, the cruise queues have thinned, and the three things that justify the flight — the water, the food and the culture calendar — are easier to reach than in August. Here is what is genuinely on for the rest of October 2026, with every figure checked on 13 October.What October Actually Feels Like HereIstanbul averages about 17°C...

Istanbul lets you spend the morning negotiating over a carpet inside a 570-year-old covered market and the afternoon paying a fixed, tagged price for a Bottega Veneta bag sixteen kilometres north. Both are genuine luxury shopping, but they run on opposite rules, and visitors who treat them as interchangeable tend to lose twice — overpaying at the bazaar, then burning the afternoon in traffic reaching the malls. Here is how the Grand Bazaar (Kapalıçarşı) really...

If Istanbul is your base, the European Union has taken a decision that will eventually change how you get to Europe. The Schengen visa — the sticker glued into a passport page — is being abolished, replaced by a cryptographically signed barcode applied for through one EU-wide website. That is the headline; the detail matters more, because nearly every version of this story online gets the date wrong.What the EU actually announced, and what it...

Istanbul is not a city you leave quickly. That single fact decides which day trips are worth taking and which ones look good on a map and then swallow six hours of a weekend in traffic. Get the departure hour right — and the route, and the vehicle — and three genuinely different landscapes sit inside a comfortable day's drive: an Ottoman imperial capital under a 2,543-metre mountain, a lake ringed with spa hotels, and...

Two very different things are sold in Istanbul under the same word. One is a private yacht hired by the hour, with a crew and a table laid on the aft deck — the water is the point. The other is a boat used exactly like a car, lifting you off a pier near your hotel and onto a pier near your dinner, and earning its fee because it is over in a quarter of...

Exploring Istanbul with children is an unforgettable adventure filled with colorful bazaars, massive palaces, and scenic boat rides. However, navigating a city spread across two continents—with cobblestone streets, crowded public transit, and steep hills—can quickly turn a dream family vacation into an exhausting ordeal.To enjoy the best of Istanbul without the stress, the secret comes down to two things: curating an engaging, kid-approved itinerary and choosing smooth, comfortable transportation tailored to your family's needs.Top Kid-Friendly...