Although there are no super-famous sights here, we find ourselves on Istaklal Caddesi (‘Independence Avenue’) once every few days. What it has, in large quantities, is retail, and restaurants. Many international brands are represented here, but it still has a distinct feel that you will not find anywhere else. We’ve never seen it uncrowded: Sunday morning, Tuesday late night, noon… Some times are easier to navigate than others, but you’ll never walk alone. And you’ll never need to worry about food either: about every fourth storefront is a restaurant, and there are dozens more, plus cafés and bars, in the narrow streets leading off it. Not to mention the street food that is readily available. And – because we do care about stuff other than food – a majority of the buildings are also stunners, gorgeous late nineteenth/early-twentieth century former apartment buildings.
Here are a few of the things we love on or near Istaklal Caddesi:
- Sinema Muzesi: a great museum about movie history, with a beautiful old theatre (where we have been enjoying a Stanley Kubrick Film Festival).
- Pera Palace Hotel: sadly, we won’t be riding the Orient Express any time soon. But we can still get our nostalgia fix by hanging out here. This one deserves its own post – stay tuned!
- Cicek Pasaji: the ‘Flower Passage’, one of many covered alleys built after the great fire of 1870. It gets its name from being the erstwhile home of the Beyoğlu flower auction. The design – luxury apartments above a group of shops and restaurants – comes from Paris. But this one has a distinctly Turkish feel, and it is a lovely place to sit and have a beverage or a meal, or to finish up a night out. (The photographs you can see on the upper floors are of famous former denizens.)
- Moretender’s Cocktail Crib and Sushi: just off Istaklal Caddesi. Good cocktails, great sushi, and good people-watching. Everything we want in a bar!
- Galatasaray Lisei: this high school stands at the halfway point of the street; it has a fascinating history as a former palace school and military barracks, and still teaches students (partly in French). The outer gates are arresting.
- Hayvore: just off Istaklal Caddesi, this not-fancy place features fantastic food from the Black Sea area. Like many of our favourite restaurants in Istanbul, you go look at your food to pick it out. We especially liked the large white beans in tomato sauce (fasulye), anything in vine leaves, and the anchovy pie. (Well; one of us liked it: the other found it a bit much!) And every one of the soups we’ve had has been outstanding.
- Church of St. Anthony of Padua: looks like a grand old church, until you look more closely. It actually dates to the early 20th century, but it’s done in a neo-Gothic style. There are sometimes exhibits in the courtyard. And be sure to turn around and look behind you at the balconies facing the street.
- SALT: not quite a museum, this exhibition space focuses on contemporary issues in visual and popular culture. When we visited, there was a photo archive from the 1970’s, an exhibit about 1990’s culture, and an exploration of Mediterranean nutrition, among other things. The building itself is also worth a look.
- Robinson Crusoe: This is a lovely little bookstore located in the same building as SALT. There are not quite a many books in English as one might hope for, but there are some, and it’s a pretty place to sit and browse through a book. There are lots of art books, in case you don’t read Turkish. And they have events and other readings.
- The Pera Museum: this museum, in a lovely building (the former Bristol Hotel) features art from (mostly) the 19th century and later, with lots of international exhibitions.
- Last but not least: the trolley takes you from Taksim square at the north to Tünel in the south. It’s worth a ride if the mood strikes you, but the street is less than a mile long, and you can walk faster than the trolley goes. Still, it’s pretty nifty…
