Rahmi M Koç Museum

Rahmi M Koç Museum review Rate it

Founded by the eponymous industrialist, this converted 18th-century foundry on the waterfront is a showcase for the assorted obsessions of one of the wealthiest men in Turkey. The collection includes halls after hall of antique trains, trams, boats and planes.

There's even a submarine moored in the Golden Horn. Many exhibits have moving parts that can be manually activated by buttons or levers; there's a walk-on ship's bridge with a wheel, sonar machines and alarm bells. Try to visit on a Saturday or Sunday, when all the working models are in action.

Across the road from the main complex, a domed workshop makes a quaint setting for more industrial curios including the forward section of a US airforce bomber shot down in 1943 and recovered from the seabed off Turkey's coast some 50 years later. Everything is fully labelled in English.

The museum has two top-class eateries in the pricy Café du Levant, modelled after an old-fashioned Parisian bistro, and Halat, a fish restauarant with tables on the wharf.