Kumkapı: meyhanes, patriarchates, and the Istanbul most miss
The Armenian and Greek quarter on the south side — fish meyhanes in covered passages, the patriarchates around them. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Kumkapı Marmaray
The Marmaray crosses under the Bosphorus from Sirkeci and stops here — Kumkapı station, three minutes' walk from the old sea walls. Step off and walk south; the meyhane district unfolds below you.

2. Armenian Patriarchate (Surp Asdvadzadzin)
The Patriarchate of Constantinople moved here from Bursa in 1641; the current cathedral was rebuilt in the 1910s after a fire. The courtyard is open; the chapel interior is more restrained than you'd expect — Armenian liturgical aesthetic favours simplicity. Sunday services around 9am.

3. Panaghia Eleousa (Greek Orthodox)
A working Greek Orthodox parish a few streets from the Patriarchate. Services on Sundays and Greek feast days; otherwise the courtyard is quiet enough to sit a minute. Istanbul's Greek population is now in the low thousands; the parishes that keep going are doing it on continuity alone.

4. The old residential streets
Walk back uphill through the lanes between the patriarchates and the meyhanes. Painted wooden houses, small bakkals, the kind of streets where everyone knows everyone. This is the Istanbul that doesn't show up in guidebooks because nothing here is for sale.

5. Telli Odalar Sokak
The lane is the dinner. Covered roof, white tablecloths under it, fish on ice in the window of every restaurant. Pick the one that's full of locals (rarely the ones with English menus); order the meze platter without thinking about it; ask what's fresh.

6. Back to Kumkapı Marmaray
The Marmaray runs late — last train around midnight. Walk back up through the streets you came from. Or stay; one more rakı.

Kumkapı: meyhanes, patriarchates, and the Istanbul most miss