Çiçek Pasajı

This ornate covered arcade off İstiklal Avenue, whose name means flower passage, was built in the 1870s as an elegant shopping and residential gallery in the belle époque style. Its glass-roofed corridor, lined with decorative façades and cast-iron detailing, later became famous for the cluster of taverns and meyhanes serving meze and rakı beneath the arches. Once a haunt of White Russian émigrés selling flowers, it has swung between grandeur and decay before restoration revived it as a window onto old Pera nightlife.