Kadıköy is the main district of the Asian shore — a neighbourhood of bookshops, fish restaurants, street art, and the kind of comfortable leftwing bohemianism that has long distinguished it from the more conservative Üsküdar to the north. The area has a high concentration of writers, musicians, and university graduates, and the political graffiti is more abundant and more pointed than elsewhere in the city.
The neighbourhood stretches from the ferry terminal through the market quarter and out to the Moda peninsula. It is the part of Istanbul where you are most likely to spend an afternoon browsing bookshops, eating grilled fish at a pavement table, and overhearing conversations that range across politics, football, and literature with equal enthusiasm.