Büyük Valide Han

Büyük Valide Han is the largest surviving caravanserai in Istanbul, a sprawling seventeenth-century trading inn tucked into the streets between the Grand Bazaar and the Golden Horn. Built around 1651 under Kösem Sultan, the powerful queen mother of the day, it once housed travelling merchants, their animals and their goods behind fortress-like walls in the commercial heart of the Ottoman capital.

Its layout follows the classic han pattern. Three linked courtyards are ringed by tiers of vaulted stone chambers, originally lockable stores and lodgings for traders arriving with caravans from Persia, the Caucasus and across the empire. At its heart stand the remains of a small mosque and a stout Byzantine tower, reminders of the many centuries the strategic site has been in continuous use.

Today the han is a gritty, living workshop rather than a polished monument. Its cells hum with small textile ateliers, weavers and knitwear producers, sewing machines clattering behind battered metal doors and bolts of fabric stacked in the arcades. Cats prowl the crumbling galleries, washing lines are strung between columns that have stood for close to four hundred years, and little English is spoken.

The real draw for travellers is the rooftop. For a small tip to one of the workshops, visitors can climb worn, unlit stairways to the terraces, which offer one of the finest and least-known panoramas in the city, framing the Süleymaniye Mosque against the skyline. There are no signs, tickets, railings or facilities, so come with a sense of adventure, watch your footing on the uneven steps, go by day for the light, and treat the working craftsmen with courtesy as you explore their domain. Photographers in particular prize the terraces at golden hour, when the low sun gilds the domes across the rooftops.