What kind of Istanbul do you get by staying in Taksim?

You get the modern half: a nineteenth and twentieth century city of apartment blocks, arcades, cinemas, record shops and restaurants that fill up after nine. Taksim and the streets of Beyoğlu below it are where Istanbul spent the last two hundred years, as opposed to the peninsula across the water where it spent the previous fifteen. Choosing between the two is really a choice about which century you want outside the door.

Why does this part of the city look European?

Because it was built that way, as the quarter where foreign embassies, banks, theatres and department stores stood when the diplomatic city moved up the hill. Many of those embassy buildings are still there as consulates, and the apartment houses around them carry the same period detail. It surprises visitors who arrive expecting domes and minarets everywhere and find a boulevard of stone facades instead.

Where does Taxim Lounge Hotel stand in this quarter?

Taxim Lounge Hotel is on Hasnun Galip Sokak, one of the side streets that run off the main pedestrian avenue in the middle stretch of Beyoğlu, which puts it inside the walking quarter rather than on the square itself. That middle stretch is where the bookshops, small galleries and older restaurants concentrate. It is a short walk in one direction to the square and a short walk in the other to the streets that descend towards the water.

What can you do here that the old city cannot offer?

You can eat at eleven at night, hear live music, see a film, browse a bookshop and buy a record, all within a few streets of each other. The historic peninsula closes down early because its working day is built around monuments and their opening hours. Beyoğlu is the opposite: it is dull at nine in the morning and fully awake at nine in the evening.

Are the arcades off the main avenue worth walking into?

They are the most rewarding thing in the quarter and the easiest to miss, because from the avenue they look like doorways rather than streets. Behind those doorways sit courtyards of restaurants, antique dealers, instrument makers and stairwells leading to studios. Walking Beyoğlu without turning into the passages is like reading only the chapter titles.

Does staying up here mean giving up the monuments?

No, it means reaching them by a short journey rather than on foot, using the rail and tram network that connects the two halves of the city. Most visitors who base themselves in Taksim make one trip a day to the peninsula and come back up in the evening. What they trade is the morning walk to a mosque; what they get is somewhere to be after dark.

What does this quarter sound like at night?

It sounds like a neighbourhood that is still awake, and the difference between a good night and a bad one here is measured in streets rather than kilometres. A room over a bar is loud, a room in a side street a block back is usually not, and hotel photographs do not distinguish between the two. Ask what the room faces and which floor it is on before you book anywhere in Beyoğlu.

Is Taksim a sensible base for a first visit?

It is if your trip is longer than three nights, because the evenings become part of the holiday instead of an interval between sights. On a very short first visit the balance tips the other way, since every journey to the peninsula eats into a small budget of daylight. The honest test is what you want to be doing at eight in the evening.

Which traveller gets the least out of this quarter?

The visitor who plans to be in bed by nine, sees only the historic sites and dislikes hills gets very little back from Beyoğlu, and would be better placed across the Golden Horn. The quarter's whole value is the part of the day that other districts hand back to you. If you will not be using the evening, you are paying for something you will not collect.

Choose the century, then choose the street

Decide first whether you want the old city or the modern one, and only then argue about which street you sleep on. If the modern half is the one you want, look at the rooms at Taxim Lounge Hotel and ask through the contact page which rooms face the quiet side before you confirm your dates.