So much culture and history in a single tour! - We had only a few days to spend in Istanbul at the end of a longer trip. We are so glad we chose this small group tour company for this tour and another, to take in as much as we could in the available time. Between the two tours, we experienced SO MUCH of Istanbul's history and culture. And great food, but that's a different review! :) Our guide Omer was knowledgeable and passionate about Istanbul. He encouraged our questions (and we had many!). The skip-the line feature of this tour/tour company was a great benefit. With the small group we had a more conversational experience with Omer and the other two guests on our tour, in contrast to some very large groups we saw at each site. Omer is a great ambassador for Istanbul and for your company - we are grateful.

Pick this one! - Sahil was an excellent guide. He was very knowledgeable and guided us around at a leisurely pace. The sights were impressive and so OLD! Sahil explain the history clearly, which is tricky when we are looking at a 1500 year old Mosque. Definitely recommend.

Amazing - This was a lovely experience. My guide was informative, very nice and spoke perfect English. I can't wait to return.

Amazing tours with Sahil - Sahil our Guide was exceptional. He is warm, friendly and guides you at a leisurely pace so you can savor every special moment during your visit in Istanbul. Sahil has a depth of knowledge and can answer any questions you ask him. He guides you effortlessly and quickly through the long lines at major sites and brings you closer to the local life that other tours don’t always achieve. We did four tours with Sahil in three days, each one provided a different facet of Istanbul. I highly recommend Sahil if you are visiting Istanbul. I hope to return and will definitely book Sahil again.

Essence of Istanbul with Salih - Salih is like a champagne who makes you feel at ease . His charming personality, the knowledge he possesses is immaculate and he manages our group so beautifully that we never felt out of place . Book this tour with him and do all his tours else you will regret it .

It was great - We had a wonderful guide Yusuf from Chora Travel. Very good organizer and very friendly and helpful helping us with everything

Great intro to Istanbul! - Excellent, informative tour of major sights and great introduction to Istanbul. Highly recommend this tour company!

Amazing, definitely do it! Not too rushed - A fantastic tour that really got into the history and background of Istanbul. We spent a good amount of time at each place and didn't feel rushed or herded like some of these tours can be. Our guide spoke perfect English and had such detailed knowledge of the history of the area and culture, and was good at relating it to current affairs and the modern day. The mosques were stunning and we learnt so much about every detail in each of them, and our guide was extremely knowledgeable and answered all our questions easily. Our guide gave us further recommendations of where to go in the area after the tour and they turned out to be great ideas/advice. It is fairly long so make sure you get some water along the way and have a snack at the break time. This was a very fairly priced tour, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone in Istanbul - it gave us an excellent introduction to the city (both historically/culturally and geographically) which made the rest of our stay there much easier to navigate and appreciate.

Quick skip the lines - It was good to have the guide to skip the lines to get into everywhere quicker . A little free time at each destination would have enhanced the tour . To much irrelevant information about architecture made us lose interest . We did most of this tour again on our own .

A very bad experience - The whole description on the website was inaccurate. The tour was advertised as a 4 hours tour with a guide for a fee of £50 p/pers which was supposed to include a guided tour of the Haggia Sophia, the blue Mosque and the Cister Basilica. In the description they mentioned that the entry fee to the Cistern of 300 TL wasn't included. I booked thinking that we'd have a kind of priority queue for the monuments. On arrival at the Haggia Sophia, we not only had to stand in the queue for more than an hour, we also discovered that the 25 euros entrance fee for Haggia Sophia wasn't included and that the entrance fee for the Cistern had dubbeled in price. Moreover, we would also have had to stand in a long queue for the remaining 2 monuments. I'm not sure how the guide was planning to do the tour in 4 hours whilst the waiting time to access the 3 monuments would have added up to a minimum of 3 hours! When we kindly ask the tour guide to speak to her boss, we were dismayed by the man's attitude- he was unprofessional, rude and blaming. In short, avoid this tour company, they're dishonest!