Description

Our opinion

You only need to walk up the avenue from the Tünel station to realize where you are. The building facades grow closer together, the signs switch languages, and something about the height of the windows reminds you that this neighborhood was long conceived as a piece of Europe set on the shores of the Golden Horn. This is what the neighborhood’s current name, Me?rutiyet, has replaced. In the past, this area was known as “the Petit Champs,” and French was spoken in the salons, banks, and legations that lined the street, all the way to the doors of the Pera Palace, which opened in 1892 for travelers on the Orient Express. The building itself stands as a testament to that era. Its brick walls, hardwood floors, and high ceilings still bear the mark of that time, and the terrace at the very top looks out toward the Galata Tower just as the upper floors once did.