A picturesque lane of old lstanbul houseses squeezed between the City's greatest imperial monuments -the Hagia Sophia and the Topkapı Palace -was taken over in its entirety by the Touring Club of Turkey and revived as a hotel complex in the 1980s. lt was a pioneering project that set the trend of historical revivals that has spread across Turkey since then.

Rooms and amenities:

Each of the gaily painted clapboard houses contains five to ten hotel rooms furnished in the gilded quasi- Victorian style favoured by the Ottoman elite of the last century. A four-storey mansion set in a spacious garden of its own forms a separate unit called Konukevi. (Its upper fioors offer a good view over the rooftops of the Palace). An underground cistern of early Byzantine origin serves as one of three restaurants. Also within the complex is an important research library devoted to books and manuscripts on the histOry of Istanbul. The street is paved in cobblestone and closed to motor traffic. Recent signatures in the guestbook include such celebrities as the film directors Bernardo Bertolucci and Roman Polanski.