We arrived in Istanbul from Ankara on the bus. The bus first stopped at a port on the Asian side of the Bosphorous, then went on to the main bus station. As is the case elsewhere, the bus station is located quite a distance from downtown. We made the mistake at this point of taking the free ‘connector’ bus service to downtown. This small shuttle waited around at the station for about half an hour before leaving for downtown. We would have done much better getting local transportation to get downtown (although this is slightly complicated, and involves taking a bus, and then connecting to the tram)For tourists, Sultanahmet is the place to be. All of the big ‘must-see’s are clustered around in this area: the Blue Mosque, the underground cisterns, the Aya Sofia, and of course the Topkapi Palace. The Grand Bazaar is also just a short walk away.