About This Tour
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman Empire for over a thousand years — a city of extraordinary monuments, theological controversy, imperial ceremony, and urban scale unlike anything else in the medieval world. This tour traces that civilisation from its founding through to the fall of the city in 1453, visiting the significant surviving monuments that most tours overlook entirely.
The programme begins at the Archaeological Museums and moves through Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, the Hippodrome, the Valens Aqueduct, and Zeyrek Mosque before transferring to the Chora Museum — whose 14th-century mosaics and frescoes are among the finest surviving examples of Byzantine art anywhere in the world. The day ends at the Theodosian Land Walls, which held the city for over a millennium before the Ottoman siege of 1453.
This is not a landmarks tour with Byzantine footnotes. It is a complete historical programme led by an expert historian who specialises in Byzantine Constantinople — designed for travellers who want to understand the city, not just photograph it.
Byzantine Istanbul Route
A complete exploration of Constantinople from its founding through the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453.
Begin with the foundations of ancient Byzantium and Constantinople through one of the world's richest collections of classical and Byzantine artifacts.
Explore the greatest surviving monument of the Byzantine Empire and the architectural masterpiece of Emperor Justinian.
Discover the vast underground reservoir that supplied water to the Great Palace of Constantinople.
Visit one of the city's lesser-known underground Byzantine reservoirs featuring hundreds of ancient columns.