Beşiktaş has a sahil walk south to Ortaköy that's its postcard. The inland walk, the one that gives you the working neighbourhood, climbs the other way: through the market quarter the locals call the Çarşı, past Sinan's mosque for the Grand Admiral Sinan Pasha, up the hill to the gardens Sultan Abdülhamid II had laid out around his preferred palace.
Four kilometres, ninety minutes with the climb. Start at the ferry pier; the eagle statue is the meeting point of Beşiktaş social life. Cut west into the Çarşı — a few square blocks of pide ovens, small bakkals, the fish market that gives the neighbourhood its midday smell. Sinanpaşa Camii sits at the centre, a Sinan design from 1555.
Then the climb. Yıldız Caddesi rises steadily west for a kilometre; pace yourself. The park gates open onto a hundred hectares of imperial garden — pines, fountains, ponds, the kiosks Abdülhamid II built in the 1880s when he moved out of Dolmabahçe.
End at Şale Köşkü, the imperial chalet, now a museum — the sultan entertained Kaiser Wilhelm II here in 1898. Yıldız bus stop is at the lower gate.
