Great Palace Mosaic Museum

The Great Palace Mosaic Museum (Büyük Saray Mozaikleri Müzesi) is a small, easy-to-miss museum built into the archaeological remains of the Great Palace of Constantinople — the residential palace of the Byzantine emperors, which stood roughly where the Blue Mosque's parking lot is today. The site is on a hill above the Arasta Bazaar, accessed by a staircase from the back of the bazaar.

The museum's draw is the ~80-square-meter mosaic floor of a 5th-century peristyle courtyard — likely from the palace of Justinian, or possibly from an earlier 5th-century structure. The scenes are mostly scenes of daily life: a child being taught to walk, a man milking a goat, a hunter with a stag, children playing, women carrying baskets of fruit. They're remarkable for both their state of preservation and for being un-commissioned art rather than religious imagery — they give a window into ordinary life in Constantinople in the late Roman period.

The museum building itself is a simple modern shelter constructed over the excavation. There's also a small section of older mosaic from the 4th-century predecessor palace, and a model of what the Great Palace would have looked like at its height.

~6 EUR, daily 09:00-18:00. Few tourists come here — it's a peaceful 30-minute stop between the Arasta Bazaar and the Blue Mosque area.