Although situated way out of the city centre, this museum is definitely worth travelling for. Founded by the head of the Koc industrial group, one of Turkey's major players, it fills an 18th-century waterfront foundry with the technologies and tomorrow's worlds of times past. The collection includes Ottoman astrolabes, giant clunky German telex machines, plus halls and halls of trains and boats and planes, old Istanbul trams and even a submarine moored in the Golden Horn. Plenty of the exhibits have moving parts that can be manually activated by buttons or levers, and there's a walk-on ship's bridge with a wheel, sonar machines and alarm bells. Great fun. Try to visit on a Saturday, when all the working models are in action. Across the road from the main complex, an old domed workshop makes a beautiful setting for more industrial curios including the forward section of a US airforce bomber, Hadley's Harem, shot down in 1943 and recovered from the seabed off Turkey's Med coast some 50 years later. Everything is fully labelled in English. Plus - will wonders never cease - the museum has two top-rank restaurants in the Frenchified Cafe du Levant and Halat, with open-air wharf-side seating. If you don't fancy the bus, a taxi from Eminönü or Taksim Square takes 15 minutes and costs about the equivalent of $4. Note that the splendidly eccentric Miniatürk is only another couple of miles from here.
Open 10am-5pm Tue-Fri; 10am-7pm Sat, Sun.
Admission $3.75, submarine $1.50. No credit cards.