Galataport İstanbul

This guide to Galataport İstanbul follows the Karaköy waterfront through roughly two centuries when it was sealed off from ordinary Istanbulites by port facilities and customs sheds, up to October 2021, when the first cruise ship docked and the gates came down. It explains how engineers buried a twenty-nine-thousand-square-meter terminal beneath the promenade, with hydraulic hatches that rise and retract as ships come and go, an idea its designer called the city's fifteenth cistern. On the surface, look for what survived: the 1911 parcel post office and the restored 1732 Tophane Fountain.