Built by Genoese merchants in 1348 and named the Tower of Christ, Galata Tower has spent nearly seven centuries watching Istanbul reinvent itself.

Its walls are almost four metres thick, which perhaps explains why it survived long enough to witness one of history's more audacious stunts: in the 17th century, an inventor named Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi strapped on self-made wings, leapt from the top and glided three kilometres to Üsküdar on the Asian shore. The Sultan, impressed but alarmed, sent him into exile in Algeria.

During the Ottoman era, it served as a fire-watch post. Today, a narrow balcony rings the top, best at the blue hour when the city softens into silhouette.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the neighbourhood's layered past: the Genoese colony that once surrounded the tower, the Sephardic Jewish community that settled nearby after 1492, and the cobbled streets' rapid transformation in the early 2000s.