2 Best Sights in Istanbul, Turkey

Upon being kicked out of Aya Sofya after the Turkish conquest of the city, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate wandered among several churches before settling here in the Church of St. George in 1601. Rebuilt after a fire in 1720, the church is a relatively simple basilica, though the (rather dark) interior has a refined atmosphere. Sarcophagi with the remains of some famous Byzantine saints, a Byzantine-era patriarchal throne, and two very old mosaic icons on the right side of the elaborate iconostasis are considered the most noteworthy features of the church. The main front gate of the compound has been welded shut ever since Sultan Mahmud II had Patriarch Gregory V hanged from it in 1821 as punishment for the Greek revolt. This small church is theoretically the center of the Orthodox world, though some Turks would like to claim that it serves only the dwindling community of Istanbul Greeks.

One of the most remarkable and odd structures in Istanbul—and that's saying a lot—this small neo-Gothic church looks like it's covered with elaborate stone carvings, but when you get up close, you realize that it's all cast iron. It was prefabricated in Vienna, shipped down the Danube on barges, and erected on the western shore of the Golden Horn in 1898. The then-flourishing Bulgarian Orthodox community in Istanbul was eager to have an impressive church of its own as a statement of its independence from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate (the Ottoman Sultan had given the community permission to break away in 1870, but the first church built on the site had burned down). The Istanbul municipality announced in mid-2011 that the church—one of the few such surviving prefab cast-iron churches in the world—would undergo restoration. The building is set in neatly tended gardens by the waters of the Golden Horn.