Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The high-octane hub of eating, drinking and entertainment in the city, Beyoğlu is where
visitors and locals come in search of good restaurants, glamorous rooftop bars, live-music
venues, hip hotels and edgy boutiques. Built around the major boulevard of İstiklal Cad-
desi, it incorporates a mix of bohemian residential districts such as Çukurcuma and Ci-
hangir, bustling entertainment enclaves such as Asmalımescit and historically rich pockets
such as Galata and Karaköy.
Nineteenth-century French writer Pierre Loti described the stretch of the Bosphorus shore
between Beşiktaş and Ortaköy as featuring '...a line of palaces white as snow, placed at
the edge of the sea on marble docks'. Fortunately, his description remains as accurate as it
is evocative. North of this palace precinct is the famous 'Golden Mile', a string of upmar-
ket nightclubs running between the waterside suburbs of Ortaköy and Kuruçeşme, once
humble fishing villages and now pockets of prime real estate.
Seen from the ferry, the hilly terrain of this residential suburb on the Asian shore is stud-
ded with minarets, indicating the number of mosques that were built here by order of Ot-
toman nobility. Today, it's a conservative neighbourhood that has an authentically Anato-
lian, rather than European, flavour.
