Istanbul: Beyoğlu

Beyoglu (BEY-oh-loo) is the district on the north bank of the Golden Horn, from the Galata Bridge to Taksim Square.
In the 1800s this was the newer, more European section of Istanbul (Constantinople). Embassies were built here, foreign merchants lived and worked here, and they shopped at the posh boutiques along the Grande Rue de Péra, now called Istiklal Caddesi.
This was also one of the neighbourhoods favoured by the sultan's Jewish subjects and still has many beautiful small synagogues.
At the southern end of Istiklal Caddesi is a Whirling Dervish hall in which the Mevlevi dervishes still whirl...