Istanbul’s 11 Best Spas

From Mimar Sinan’s historic hammams to the spas of the palace and grand hotels on the Bosphorus: eleven Istanbul spas, what each does best and what to book, every detail checked on the spa’s own website.

Istanbul has bathed in public since Roman times, and it still does so in the buildings of its greatest architect. Mimar Sinan’s hammams stand in Tophane, beside Hagia Sophia and in the Süleymaniye complex; a bath of 1481 survives just off İstiklal Avenue; and along the Bosphorus the palace and grand hotels have built spas of marble and water of their own.

The tradition here is the hammam: you lie on the heated marble göbek taşı under a dome pierced with light until the heat has done its work, then an attendant scrubs you with the kese, washes you in clouds of soap foam and rinses you with bowls of warm water. The hotel spas keep the ritual and add what the old baths never had: indoor and outdoor pools, saunas, steam rooms, couples’ suites and modern facials.

We chose these eleven for what each does best and checked every detail on the hammam’s, spa’s or hotel’s own website. The historic baths suit a first visit and an hour of real tradition; the hotel spas suit a long, slow day. Each entry tells you which, and what to book.

At a glance

1. Kılıç Ali Paşa Hamamı · Tophane · Sinan’s restored hammam · A dome 14 metres wide, with separate hours for women and men

2. Hürrem Sultan Hamamı · Sultanahmet · Sinan’s double hammam · Mirror-image baths between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque

3. Çemberlitaş Hamamı · Divanyolu · A double hammam of 1584 · Thirty-eight marble basins, by the Column of Constantine

4. Cağaloğlu Hamamı · Sultanahmet · The hammam of 1741 · A hot room of eight marble columns under one dome

5. Süleymaniye Hamamı · Süleymaniye · Sinan’s hammam for couples and families · Heated by oak-wood fires beneath the marble

6. Galatasaray Hamamı · Beyoğlu · The bath of 1481 · Five centuries of bathing just off İstiklal

7. Raffles Spa · Zorlu Center · A 3,000-square-metre spa floor · Three private hammams, indoor and outdoor pools

8. Four Seasons at the Bosphorus · Beşiktaş · Palace-hotel spa · Marmara-marble hammams and a skylit indoor pool

9. The Peninsula Spa · Karaköy · A marble-clad spa · Separate hammams for women and men

10. Mandarin Oriental Bosphorus · Kuruçeşme · Destination spa · Turkish hammam, indoor pool and a zen garden

11. Sanitas Spa · Beşiktaş · A spa in an Ottoman palace hotel · A hammam, and a heated pool on the Bosphorus

1. Kılıç Ali Paşa Hamamı

Best for: The most beautiful restoration in the city, and a calm, well-run first hammam.

The setting: Mimar Sinan began this bathhouse in 1578 for Kılıç Ali Pasha, the Ottoman admiral, to serve the sailors of Tophane on the waterfront. It stands free on all sides, so you can see the whole building, and its main dome is 14 metres wide and 17 metres high: what the hammam calls the second-largest dome on any Istanbul hammam. After seven years of restoration it reopened in 2012, and in 2017 the work won a Europa Nostra award.

Heat, water and treatments: You undress upstairs, put on the peştamal wrap and go through to the hot room, where you lie on the marble göbek taşı under the dome until the heat softens your skin. The attendant then scrubs you with the kese for 15 to 20 minutes, washes you in soap foam, rubs you down with a loofah and washes your hair. If the heat is too much, the cooler soğukluk is next door. Women bathe in the morning and early afternoon, men in the evening.

What to book: The traditional ritual, which ends in the entrance hall with lemonade or tea from the café. An oil massage is not part of it: book it separately, in a room of its own.

2. Hürrem Sultan Hamamı

Best for: Bathing in a Sinan monument, with the most polished service in the old city.

The setting: Sinan built this double bathhouse in 1556 for Hürrem Sultan, wife of Süleyman the Magnificent, on the square between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, where the Roman Baths of Zeuxippus once stood. It was the first hammam to set the men’s and women’s baths on one axis, as mirror images, in a building 75 metres long.

A restoration begun in 2008 used 1,300 square metres of Marmara marble, and the dome over the cold room rises 24 metres.

Heat, water and treatments: The hot room is kept at around 42–47°C, with a large marble platform under the dome, open and private alcoves, marble basins and gold-plated bowls for pouring water over yourself. The scrub and the foam wash are given here; afterwards you rest in the cold room with an Ottoman sherbet of forest fruits and herbs.

What to book: The rituals run from Pir-ü Pak (45 minutes) to Ab-i Hayat (110 minutes). Zevk-i Sefa, at 80 minutes, adds an aromatherapy massage with redbud-scented oil to the scrub and foam, with a face or body mask if you like.

3. Çemberlitaş Hamamı

Best for: An authentic, unhurried hammam on the tram line, open from early morning to midnight.

The setting: Nurbanu Sultan endowed this double hammam to fund her mosque complex in Üsküdar, and its inscription dates its completion to 1584. The Ottoman record of Sinan’s works lists it among them. Two matching sections stand side by side on Divanyolu, next to the Column of Constantine and a short walk from the Grand Bazaar.

Heat, water and treatments: Warm marble, the central heated platform, 38 marble basins in the hot rooms and light falling from the dome. The classic entrance has no time limit, so you can lie on the göbek taşı for as long as you like.

What to book: The Luxury Package: the kese scrub and soap-foam wash, then a 30-minute aromatherapy oil massage. For a first visit, the shorter Body Scrub and Bubble Wash is the classic ritual in 15 minutes.

4. Cağaloğlu Hamamı

Best for: Classic Ottoman architecture, and a restaurant in the same building for afterwards.

The setting: Built in 1741 to fund the library of Sultan Mahmud I inside Hagia Sophia, Cağaloğlu was the last great hammam of its kind to be built in Istanbul. Men enter from the main street between two marble columns; women use their own door on a side street. In the high entrance hall a fountain plays beneath a lantern in the dome.

Heat, water and treatments: In the hot room, eight arches on eight marble columns carry the dome, with the marble göbek taşı at the centre and private alcoves in the four corners. The women’s hot room is built the same way.

What to book: The Ottoman Luxury Service, or the longer rituals named for Sultan Mahmud I and the Elixir of Cağaloğlu Hammam; then a meal at Lokanta 1741, the hammam’s own restaurant.

5. Süleymaniye Hamamı

Best for: Couples and families who want to bathe together, in a hammam of Sinan’s great mosque complex.

The setting: Süleyman the Magnificent commissioned this hammam from Sinan as part of the complex around the Süleymaniye Mosque, today within a UNESCO World Heritage site. It closed in 1924 and reopened in 2004 after careful renovation.

Heat, water and treatments: The heat still comes from a traditional külhan: oak-wood fires beneath the marble floors. You rest on the heated marble for about 30 minutes at 38–40°C, pouring warm or cool water over yourself, before the kese, a soap wash and a soap massage, then cool down with a drink in the cooling room.

It is a shared, communal space for couples and families, not a private room; the attendants are all men, as by tradition, and swimwear is provided.

What to book: There is one ritual, so book it two or three days ahead: it runs by appointment only, and the hammam is for adults.

Warm marble, a dome pierced with light and a kese scrub: the hammam, in the buildings of Mimar Sinan.

6. Galatasaray Hamamı

Best for: A traditional bath steps from İstiklal Avenue, for an evening in Beyoğlu.

The setting: The Galatasaray Hamamı was built in 1481 with the Galatasaray complex under Sultan Bayezid II, on Turnacıbaşı Sokak just off İstiklal Avenue. Its own history recalls that the boarders of the neighbouring Galatasaray school were once brought here to bathe every morning, with the street door closed to other customers.

Heat, water and treatments: The classic sequence of heat, kese and foam, with peştamal, slippers, towels and shampoo provided. As the hammam asks, you stay covered from the waist down.

What to book: The kese service or the fuller Paşa service; for an oil massage, ask when you book: it is given by therapists in separate massage rooms.

7. Raffles Spa Istanbul

Best for: The most complete modern spa in the city, for a whole day.

The setting: Raffles Spa fills the second floor of Raffles Istanbul at Zorlu Center: 3,000 square metres in all. The pool hall is lined in pale stone, with a glittering suspended ceiling above green-tiled water, and the wet areas are dressed in grey and white marble.

Heat, water and treatments: Three traditional hammams, seven spa suites (two of them for couples), indoor and outdoor pools and relaxation areas. The wet facilities open from 7am to 10pm and treatments run from noon.

What to book: The Aegean Purity ritual in a private hammam: the kese and a foam massage with olive-oil soap. The signature journeys, of 90 to 195 minutes, combine a hammam, a massage and a facial, and can include a healthy spa lunch.

8. The Spa at Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus

Best for: A palace-hotel day by the water: a hammam, a massage and a swim.

The setting: The spa of the Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus has ten treatment rooms. Its hammams are made of Marmara marble and carry an eight-pointed star motif, which the hotel explains as a symbol, from the Seljuk Empire, of the eight gates to heaven.

Heat, water and treatments: An indoor pool beneath soaring skylights, an outdoor pool in season, steam rooms and a couple’s suite for side-by-side massages. Children up to 14 can use the pools and spa facilities with an adult between 9am and 7pm.

What to book: Turkish Indulgence, the spa’s local ritual; or one of its four hammam rituals, from the Traditional Turkish Hammam to the Royal Hammam. For a full day, the Day by the Bosphorus package.

9. The Peninsula Spa Istanbul

Best for: A quiet, marble-clad hideaway in Karaköy.

The setting: The Peninsula Spa and Wellness Centre lies on a lower level of The Peninsula Istanbul, in a hushed, marble-clad space. You begin in the tea lounge before your treatment.

Heat, water and treatments: Eight private treatment rooms, two of them for couples, with separate saunas, relaxation rooms and hammams for women and men.

What to book: The MBR Age Defying Customized Facial, a three-step treatment for the face, neck and décolleté: Prepare, Treat and Seal.

10. The Spa at Mandarin Oriental Bosphorus

Best for: A long afternoon of heat, water and fresh air on the Bosphorus shore.

The setting: Mandarin Oriental Bosphorus calls its spa Istanbul’s first destination spa. It is in the hotel at Kuruçeşme, on the European shore of the Bosphorus, beside a fitness centre set around inner gardens, and is open to non-resident guests as well as the hotel’s own.

Heat, water and treatments: An indoor pool, a steam room, a sauna, a jacuzzi and a zen garden open to the air, plus the spa’s own Turkish hammam. The spa suggests arriving 45 minutes before your appointment to enjoy them.

What to book: A hammam ritual on its own, or paired with a massage or facial from the spa menu.

11. Sanitas Spa at Çırağan Palace Kempinski

Best for: Bathing in a palace setting, then a swim beside the Bosphorus.

The setting: Çırağan Palace Kempinski describes itself as the only Ottoman imperial palace hotel on the Bosphorus. Its Sanitas Spa offers a hammam, treatments and massages.

Heat, water and treatments: A hammam and treatment rooms, and outside, the hotel’s heated infinity pool beside the Bosphorus.

What to book: A hammam at Sanitas Spa, followed by time at the heated pool with the Bosphorus in front of you.

Our advice

Our advice: book ahead: most of the historic hammams ask you to reserve, and Süleymaniye works by appointment only. Check who bathes when: Kılıç Ali Paşa has separate hours for women and men, while Süleymaniye is for couples and families together. Wraps, towels and slippers are provided, but you stay covered from the waist down, so bring a spare swimsuit bottom or underwear.

At Kılıç Ali Paşa and Galatasaray the traditional ritual has no oil massage, so add one when you book. At the hotel spas, arrive early to use the pools and heat (the Mandarin Oriental suggests 45 minutes, and its minimum age is 16). The heat is strong: tell the attendants about any heart or blood-pressure condition, and avoid it in pregnancy, as Süleymaniye advises.