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Not much more than three hours from London in a plane, Istanbul offers the sense of being somewhere much more distant. There are many good reasons to visit - as a stepping stone to exploring the great expanses of Anatolia, the Grand Bazaar, the food, the people, the hamam, but the main pleasure of visiting Istanbul is to revel in its rainbow past and ancient buildings.

See, of course, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome, Sta Sophia and the Topkapi palace. All these are close to each other and must be visited, but don't expect anything more than joining a multi-national queue of fellow ceiling-starers. A much more rewarding way to see the city is to get hold of a copy of ‘Strolling Through Istanbul’ by Hilary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely and plan your own tour. Wonderfully detailed, scholarly and exhaustive, Sumner-Boyd and Freely appear to list - and explain - every church, every pre-modern mosque, every ruined wall, every piece of broken cistern in the city. The downside is a rather fogey-ish reverence for antiquity, and hopeless maps (even with a city map, it's not easy to synchronise with their directions). They also advise strict routes which are best tailored. But there are few better ways to idle away a day or two than in their company.

Must-sees are the wonderfully irregular and very early church (now a mosque) of SS Sergius and Bacchus, the much-visited but stunning mosaics of St Saviour in Chora (Kariye Camii), Sinan's mosques of Rustem Pasha and Selimiye and Suleymaniye and Sokollu Mehmet Pasha (all of which are variations on the classical Ottoman mosques and boast wonderful examples of Iznik ceramics at their height - a whole day at least could be spent just seeing the buildings designed by Sinan). Go further afield to the lesser monuments and you are guaranteed to be the only foreigner there. There is no better way to reveal the layers of a city which has sustained more imperial power, seen more bloodshed, more dynastic ebbs and flows, more diverse religious devotion than any other on earth. But also - by wandering through the lesser-known quarters, backstreets and countless minor markets - you will get a sense of the living city too.

Best time of year to do this is April / May or late September / early October. Then you avoid the worst of the crowds and really can stroll large distances without roasting like a kebab. Lest a day looking at old buildings and ruins is too dry, head in the evening for the bright lights of Pera. Start at Taksim and walk back along the Istiklal Caddesi. Lots of music- and book-shops - with good English language sections - especially Pandora, in the side-street Buyukparmakkapi Sokak 3. In the same street is the popular Sal Cafe-Bar where you can hear authentic Turkish music. Other bars in the same area also have live music. And there are few better sights of Istanbul than walking down through Pera and back over the Galata bridge at night.

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