What's Open in Istanbul on a Monday?

Dolmabahçe Palace — Daily roughly 09:00–17:00 (some listings show 18:00). Closed Mondays and on 10 November (Atatürk commemoration). Visits are guided-group only, entry at fixed intervals.

Istanbul Modern — Tue/Wed/Thu/Sat/Sun 10:00–18:00, Fri 10:00–20:00; Mon closed.

Rahmi M. Koç Museum — Tue–Fri 10:00–17:00, Sat–Sun 10:00–19:00; closed Monday.

Ihlamur Kasrı (Ihlamur Pavilion) — Tue–Wed, Fri–Sun 09:30–17:00 (Oct–Feb: 09:00–15:00); closed Mon and Thu.

Sultanahmet Square & the Hippodrome — open-air, no ticket, no closing day.

Hagia Sophia — Daily 09:00–19:00 (summer to ~19:00–19:30, winter to 17:00); ground floor is an active mosque. Closes to visitors during all five daily prayer times (~30 min each) and for an extended ~2.5-hour closure at Friday noon prayer. Upper gallery requires a paid ticket; ground floor prayer hall is free.

Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Camii) — Open daily roughly 08:30 until an hour before dusk; free entry. Closed to tourists during all five daily prayers and for an extended period around Friday noon prayer.

Basilica Cistern — Daily 09:00–22:00. May open later (from 13:00) on the first day of religious holidays.

Galata Tower — Daily 08:30–23:00 (day museum to ~18:30, separate night session after).

İstiklal Caddesi — open-air, no ticket, no closing day.

Ortaköy — open-air, no ticket, no closing day.

Topkapı Palace — Wed–Mon 09:00–18:00 (last entry ~17:00); closed Tuesday. The Harem section keeps the same days but its own ticket and last-entry time.

The schedule above is what the MEVAYA planner builds for a Monday. It only contains stops that are open that day — the planner reads each stop's closing days and will not route you to a closed venue, even one marked as essential.

The day covers about 3.0 km on foot, with no public transport needed.

Only 2 stops need booking: Hagia Sophia and Basilica Cistern. Everything else is free or sold at the door.

09:00–10:32 — Hagia Sophia. Cathedral for 900 years, mosque for 500, museum for 80, mosque again since 2020. Nothing else on earth carries that much layered history in one room. Upper gallery access is separate and ticketed for visitors. Verified opening hours: Daily 09:00–19:00 (summer to ~19:00–19:30, winter to 17:00); ground floor is an active mosque. Closes to visitors during all five daily prayer times (~30 min each) and for an extended ~2.5-hour closure at Friday noon prayer. Upper gallery requires a paid ticket; ground floor prayer hall is free. Book ahead: this stop needs a reservation or a timed ticket.

10:41–11:33 — Basilica Cistern. A sixth-century underground water chamber held up by 336 columns, two of them resting on Medusa heads. Cool, dark and completely unlike anything above ground. Verified opening hours: Daily 09:00–22:00. May open later (from 13:00) on the first day of religious holidays. Book ahead: this stop needs a reservation or a timed ticket.

11:45–12:37 — Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Camii). Six minarets and more than 20,000 İznik tiles inside, which is where the nickname comes from. Still an active mosque, and free to enter outside prayer times. Verified opening hours: Open daily roughly 08:30 until an hour before dusk; free entry. Closed to tourists during all five daily prayers and for an extended period around Friday noon prayer.

12:37–13:37 — Lunch. The planner reserves time to eat right after Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Camii), so the afternoon continues from where the morning ended instead of detouring for food.

13:46–14:33 — Sultanahmet Square & the Hippodrome. The old Roman chariot-racing ground, now a long open square with an Egyptian obelisk in the middle and the two great mosques at either end. Free, always open, and the right place to get your bearings before anything else. It is a public open-air space with no ticket and no closing day.

14:52–16:39 — Grand Bazaar. Four thousand shops under one roof since 1461, and one of the oldest covered markets on earth. Worth seeing once for the architecture and the scale. Verified opening hours: Mon–Sat 09:00–19:00; closed Sunday. Also closed for 3–4 days during Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha each year — no exceptions.

17:00–17:58 — Bosphorus ferry to Kadıköy. The public commuter ferry across to the Asian side, for the price of a metro ride. You get the same skyline the expensive cruises sell, with tea and seagulls and actual Istanbulites going home.

Built by the MEVAYA planner from MEVAYA's curated Istanbul data. Opening hours were checked against official and independent sources in September 2026; the route, times and durations are the planner's own output, not estimates written by hand.