Visit Kadıköy, on the Asian side of Istanbul. Start from Eminönü or Karaköy by ferry boat.
Kadıköy is the oldest part of Istanbul, settled in 676 b.C. by Greeks as Chalcedon. Byzantium, on the European side was settled by other Greeks nine years later. The oldest part of the city but certainly not an old fashioned or ‘typically Asian’ part of the city! It has become a trendy district with lots of bars, traditional and 3rd wave coffee shops, restaurants, tattoo parlors and boutiques where the hipsters hang out.
From the ferry boat you have a magnificent view on the sky line of the old city with the Blue Mosque, the Aya Sophia and the Topkapi palace. You will see the famous, hundred years old Haydar Pasha railway station where trains depart to Baghdad and the rest of Asia.
The impressive Selimiye military headquarters of the First Army, is also the place where – during the Crimean war – Florence Nightingale took care of the wounded Turkish, British and French soldiers and where she became a legend.
Walk through Kadikoy with its own fish and vegetable bazaar, a lot of little restaurants and bars where young professionals and a lot of students hang out, perform live music and smoke the water pipe in tea gardens. You will see old Armenian and Greek churches, an old and recently restored opera house and stroll along one of the most modern shopping promenades of Istanbul, Bahariye Caddesi.
I published a booklet with four self-guided walks.
You don’t have to download all of them at the same time.
The first focuses on Fatih including the ultra-conservative Çarşamba area and its Wednesday market as well as the more familiar Fatih Cami and the woefully under-visited, mosaic-filled Pammakaristos Church. The second takes a look at what’s hidden down the backstreets on either side of the Galata Bridge, while the third focuses on the often-overlooked mosques of Üsküdar with a detour into Kuzguncuk, almost unknown to tourists. The fourth homes in on Kadıköy and Moda.