Istanbul Airport to Beyoğlu

The tunnel you have just entered bypasses Beyoğlu's surface traffic entirely and can cut up to twenty minutes from your journey at peak hours. Piyale Pasha, whose name it carries, was the sixteenth-century Kapudan Pasha — commander-in-chief of the Ottoman navy. The district passing above you is Kasımpaşa, where one of the city's oldest shipyards was founded and where the Ottoman fleet was built for centuries.

As you leave the tunnel, the tower with the conical roof rising on your right is the Galata Tower. The Genoese built it in 1348 as the keep of their own colony; at the time this was a separate city state, ringed by its own walls. The steep lanes around the tower still follow the plan of that Genoese settlement. Today the district is one of the most expensive in the city, but the streets are as wide as they were six hundred years ago: most cannot take a car.

Before it was the name of a square, Taksim was the name of a water distribution point: in the eighteenth century water from the northern reservoirs was collected here and shared out across the city. İstiklal Avenue, running south from the square, is pedestrianised for a kilometre and a half; the red tram down its middle continues a line laid in 1875. Because stopping on the square is prohibited, your driver pulls up on one of the side streets; if your hotel is on the avenue, that means a walk of a minute or two.