Süleymaniye Hamam

Part of the great mosque complex on the third hill, this sixteenth-century bathhouse was built by Mimar Sinan as one element of the charitable foundation endowed by Suleiman the Magnificent. Constructed of stone and marble, it follows the classic sequence of cool, warm and hot rooms beneath domes pierced by glass oculi that scatter light across the steam. Restored and still functioning, it lets visitors bathe within a genuine Ottoman monument. Its survival shows how such complexes bundled worship, learning, welfare and hygiene together.