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Beyoğlu (BEY-oh-loo)
is the district on the north bank
of the Golden
Horn, from Karaköy (Galata)
and the Galata
Bridge to Taksim
Square.
In
the 1800s this was the newer, more
European section of Istanbul (Constantinople). Embassies were
built here, foreign merchants lived
and worked here, and they shopped
at the posh boutiques along the Grande
Rue de Péra, now called İstiklal
Caddesi.
This
was also one of the neighborhoods
favored by the sultan's Jewish subjects
and still has a few beautiful small synagogues.
Galatasaray
Square, midway along İstiklal
Caddesi, is where the first European-style lycée
(high school) was built by the
Ottoman sultan
during the 19th century. Also here
is the famed Çiçek
Pasajı (Flower
Passage) dining and taverna district.
At
the southern end of İstiklal
Caddesi near Tünel
Square is
a Whirling
Dervish hall in which the Mevlevi
dervishes still whirl. More...
Today Beyoğlu is
enjoying a cultural and architectural
revival. The huge embassies are now consulates,
the shops are posh again, and İstiklal
Caddesi (the Grande Rue)
is a popular pedestrian mall filled
with strollers day and night.
The
pedestrian avenue and its side streets
boast lots of nightlife: chic
cafés, bistros,
restaurants and music clubs.
The
Pera
Museum (Pera Müzesi) in
Beyoğlu's Tepebaşı district
near the grand old Pera
Palace Hotel,
is a real gem, and admission is free
of charge.
On
the Bosphorus shore
at Tophane, on
the edge of Beyoğlu, is the Istanbul
Modern Art Museum. and near it the historic Tophane-i Amire (Ottoman Imperial Arsenal), which is now the outstanding Tophane-i Amire Culture & Arts Center of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.
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