İstiklal Street

A 1.4 km pedestrian boulevard lined with 19th-century façades, historic passages, cafés and the iconic red nostalgic tram.

Once known as the Grande Rue de Péra, İstiklal was the fashionable spine of cosmopolitan Constantinople — home to European embassies, opera houses and grand apartment buildings. Renamed 'İstiklal' (Independence) after the founding of the Republic, it kept its elegant Beaux-Arts and Art Nouveau architecture while filling with bookstores, patisseries and music. The nostalgic red tram, running since 1875, still glides down the street, connecting past and present in a single ride.