My guide, the aptly named Sinan Yalcin, brilliantly zeroed in on the salient details of each building in 20- to 30-minute visits as we zigzagged through Istanbul, crossing back and forth from Europe to Asia by car and boat. Though we moved quickly, ate cheaply and fast in local lunch spots, and nearly froze standing shoeless in vast stone structures in mid-March, it was perhaps the most luxurious trip I’ve ever taken — 72 hours dedicated to one architectural marvel after another.

The first stop was Sehzade Mosque in Edirnekapi, built early in Sinan’s career. When it was finished in 1548, the architect recognized that he still had something to learn. On the mosque’s exterior lateral walls, Sinan cleverly organized the buttresses that support the weight of the dome into orderly colonnades. To create symmetry, he placed doors in the center of those colonnades. But inside the mosque, the doors meant worshipers now came and went from the middle of the room rather than from the back. “A sacred space meant for prayer and contemplation became a passageway,” Sinan the guide explained. “It was a mistake he would never repeat.”

Nearby is Sinan’s most important mosque in Istanbul. Commissioned by Suleyman for his own tomb and completed in 1558, the Suleymaniye Mosque sits atop the most prominent hill above the Golden Horn, and remains among the most visible monuments in the city. Sinan artfully modulated the height of the four minarets, enhancing the illusion that the mosque floats above the city. Recently reopened after a three-year restoration, the vast complex gleams. Still, its monumentality left me a little cold.

To get the blood flowing back into our frozen feet, we walked to our next stop, Rustem Pasha Mosque, nestled in the city’s bustling spice market, where merchants crowd the sidewalk, and rivers of mostly female shoppers flow through the streets. Sinan solved the problems of this less-than-tranquil site by raising the entire complex above street level. Two unassuming staircases lead to a serene plaza floating above the hubbub, but the real treasure awaits within, where brilliant 16th-century Iznik tile work provides worshipers with a garden of cobalt, turquoise and carnelian tulips and emerald green leaves.