Located in a central place just a few minutes walk from Taksim/Istiklal, this language school is…read moredefinitely to be recommended. Passionate teachers and the school material is carefully selected and further developed by the school management. The school ambiance is very clean, very quiet -even in the middle of town- in a lovely environment and if you are lucky your classes will take place with view to Sultanahmet on a stunning roof top terrace. Again... Highly recommended. Have a look at their webpage and sign in ... learning Turkish can be fun!

This is the Goethe Institute the way Goethe meant it - with a bar on the roof. Well, I can't 100%…read moreguarantee Goethe would approve this place. I think Faust would dig it. So, more about the penthouse bar. It is covered and has a great view of the meeting point of the waters of the Golden Horn and the Bosporus. You can see historical TopKapi Palace in the distance as well. A bottle of wine can be had at one of the tables. It can be especially popular around sunset. I highly recommend this place.

The main campus of Turkiye's most elite university has a spectacular entrance which in of itself is…read moreworth the visit as you're in the area of Beyazit Square. The gate was originally the entrance for the Ministry of War built in the late 1800s, and as a retired college professor I like the historic transition to a place of learning and scholarship. Security is pretty tight, so you can't enter the campus most of the time without some prior arrangements. If you're an academic or a college student, email a specific department (if you're a sociologist, contact their sociology-anthropology department for example) and they might be able to get your access to visit.