Make the most of four days in Istanbul

Istanbul has been the capital of four empires for 16 centuries, spans two continents, straddles two seas, has one of the world’s most beautiful skylines punctuated with palaces and minarets, is an endlessly fascinating East-meets-West mix of mosques, designer shops and buzzing bars, a cacophony of hooting car-choked streets, blasting ship horns from the incessant criss-crossing of water traffic on the Bosphorus and wailing calls to prayer five times a day and an epic setting on seven hill…