Ancient Rome Under Istanbul

Ancient Rome Under Istanbul

Istanbul, once the capital of Rome... When you walk in the streets of the old city you will see Ottoman buildings around. But where are the Roman buildings? They are under today's city of Istanbul. You just need to know the right doors to open to find them. On this tour we will...

Especially after the Catholic or Latin Crusade of 1204 AD, Constantinople was never the same/ The Crusaders occupied the city for almost 60 years, which was enough time to loot the city of most of its treasures/ When the city was returned to the Emperors and their wealth depleted, they never again had the wealth or resources to maintain or to build such large and lavish architecture again. The people were forced to rebuild their city by in a lot of cases burying the Byzantine heritage under the earth. These building projects are now buried under the modern city of Istanbul/ Some say that this destruction by fellow Christian forces laid open the city for its subsequent conquest in 1453 by Mehmet the Conqueror. Those remnants are now there for you to discover...... if you know the right doors to enter.

During this exciting tour into our Byzantine past you can find yourself walking in the footsteps of the Byzantine people. Constantine's Palace, Byzantine chapels, the hidden treasures of ancient cisterns, (not just the well known Basilica Cistern) and much more. With this fabulous tour you will learn of our Eastern Roman and Byzantine history.

We will meet in front of McDonalds (a new modern icon of the city) at 10.00 and start to discover what is left below and hidden in today's Istanbul. The tour ends around 16.30. This is a walking tour based mainly around the ancient Sultanahmet neighbourhood of Istanbul.

We treasure our innovative tour of the city, so we don't want to go into too many details at the risk of our program being copied/