Istanbul skylines and views
VIEWS FROM THE BOSPHORUS FERRY, GALATA TOWER, TOPKAPI, HARBOUR, LEVENT, MASLAK, SISLI, SULTANAHMET

Istanbul's city center has preserved its skyline of mosques and other historic towers. Unlike other European cities, you can find very few church towers on the skyline. Taksim Square is the only neighbourhood in central Istanbul that has some skyscrapers. You can also find some in the Sisli district and on the Asian side, but the real skyscraper clusters are Levent (part of Besiktas), that contains the tallest building and Maslak, that is newer. They are both located to the north of the city center, but not very far from the old town. So recently skyscrapers have started popping up all over the city, except for the historic city center. Luxury hotels, shopping malls and new office towers with spectacular design have been built, and much more are planned, so the skyline has changed dramatically the later 10 years, and it will change even more 10 years on!

Some of the few observation decks in the city can be found in the historic Galata Tower in the Karaköy neighbourhood, that we visited, and the new Sapphire Tower in Levent district, currently Istanbul's tallest building (2013, unfortunately I wasn't aware of this one, when I was in Levent). A great way to experience the skyline is either to walk along the shoreline, to climb some of the many hills, or to take the ferry along the Bosphorus with amazing views. The tallest buildings are hidden from the sound by hills, but you can see the top of them from the Bosphorus. Diamond of Istanbul is a famous skyscraper project, that is planned to be Istanbul's tallest, but that is currently on hold.