Destinations
Kadıköy the King of Cool
The Anatolian side of İstanbul offers many charms - and none more so than the Seaside district of Kadıköy.
Bohemian Meets Third Wave Cool
Kadıköy is just a leisurely beautiful ferry ride away from the city’s most famous historical sights and exudes youthful energy and a relaxed atmosphere. The streets stretching out from the ferry port are teeming with third-wave coffee shops, hip multi-purpose cafés doubling as bookshops, art centres and vendors of chic, retro memorabilia, lively innovative bars, casual restaurants, and small boutiques.
The Yeldeğirmeni district in the north is more of a grungy bohemian neighbourhood, while the Moda neighbourhood in the south exudes an established kind of cool.
In recent years, the combination of Kadıköy-Moda has become a cultural hotspot for art and music.
Yeldeğirmeni is well established and welcoming, the relatively uncrowded narrow streets are a delight, with countless nice cafés and breakfast places as well as being home to the unmissable and creative street art installations on Karakolhane Street.
Walls Make the Perfect Canvas
About two dozen multi-storey murals were commissioned as part of the Mural İstanbul Festival, which took place annually from 2012 onwards and turns a walk through the backstreets of Kadıköy into a scavenger hunt of street art. Around Misakı Milli Sokak and Reşit Efendi Sokak, there’s a whole series of murals - including lifelike portraits and images of fantastical imagination.
Pleasant shopping options of charmingly cluttered clothing and collectible shops on Recaizade Street are ready to entice you, all the while, you are accompanied by a gentle breeze and the faint but inescapable scent of the sea air. This salty breeze stimulates the appetite - especially in this part of the city where the inhabitants like to eat well, with so much classical, modern, and fusion cuisine on offer.
