Pera and Tepebaşı: the grand-hotel quarter
Pera Palace, the Orient Express era, embassies, and the Crimean Memorial Church — old Europe in Istanbul. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Taksim metro (M2)
M2 line at the top of the hill. The walk drops south down Meşrutiyet Caddesi — parallel to İstiklal, one block west, immediately quieter. Pera Palace is half a kilometre downhill.

2. Meşrutiyet Caddesi / Tepebaşı
The grand thoroughfare of 19th-century European Constantinople. The Russian and Swedish consulates and a dozen Belle Époque apartment buildings line both sides. Some compounds open for Heritage Days each September; otherwise the gates are the show.

3. Pera Palace Hotel
The 1892 hotel built by the Wagons-Lits company for Orient Express passengers. The marble lobby and Patisserie de Pera (the original ground-floor café, still operating) are open to non-guests. Take the second-oldest lift in the city up to room 411 if you can swing it — Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in it. Atatürk's suite (101) is a small museum.

4. British Consulate
The former British Embassy, used as such until 1923 when the capital moved to Ankara. William Burges designed parts of the interior in the 1870s. The compound is closed to the public, but the iron gates and the Wagons-Lits-era streetscape around it are the period piece.

5. Crimean Memorial Church
G.E. Street's 1868 Anglican church, built to commemorate the British dead of the Crimean War — the same architect who later did the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Polychrome English brickwork in an Istanbul side street. Usually open weekday afternoons; Sunday morning services.

6. Tünel funicular (F2)
The 1875 funicular — second-oldest underground passenger railway in the world after London's. Down to Karaköy in a single minute. Or walk back up İstiklal toward Taksim for the rest of the evening.

Pera and Tepebaşı: the grand-hotel quarter