Between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque lies a long, narrow park that most people cross without realising what it was. This is the site of the Hippodrome, where Byzantine Constantinople came to watch chariot races and where, in 532, a riot that began in the stands nearly ended an empire.
Three monuments remain along the old spine. An Egyptian obelisk from the fifteenth century BC, a bronze column brought from Delphi that once carried three serpent heads, and a rougher stone column stripped of its bronze by crusaders in 1204.
Walking it takes ten minutes and costs nothing. Come at sunset, when the mosque is lit and the crowds have thinned, or early enough to have the place almost to yourself.
From Romance Istanbul Hotel it is a ten-minute walk.