Sirkeci Station: Last Stop of the Orient Express
Why is it significant?
Walk round to the old station front facing the street and look at the clock tower, the big rose windows and the horseshoe arches in bands of stone and brick. It looks like a European railway station dressed up for a costume ball as an oriental palace. That is exactly what it is.
Key Facts
| Place | Sirkeci Station: Last Stop of the Orient Express |
|---|---|
| Address | Hocapaşa, Ankara Caddesi, Sirkeci Garı, 34110 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.01520, 28.97640 |
| Part of Walk | Sultans' Gates: Topkapı, Gülhane & the Sublime Porte in Istanbul |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk round to the old station front facing the street and look at the clock tower, the big rose windows and the horseshoe arches in bands of stone and brick. It looks like a European railway station dressed up for a costume ball as an oriental palace. That is exactly what it is.
Sirkeci Station was designed by the German architect August Jasmund and opened in 1890, in the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid the Second. It was the end of the line from Europe. The famous Orient Express, launched from Paris in 1883, could by then run all the way to Constantinople by rail, and passengers stepped off here, at the edge of Asia, after days in their sleeping cars.
The luxury traffic changed this part of the city. The Pera Palace Hotel was opened across the Golden Horn in 1892 largely for these travellers, and kings, spies, diplomats and writers passed through this hall. Agatha Christie set the opening of Murder on the Orient Express in Istanbul, with Poirot boarding the train here, and the novel came out in 1934.
There was a price. To bring the railway into the heart of the city, the line along the shore was laid straight through the outer gardens of Topkapı Palace, with the sultan's approval, at a time when the empire was racing to modernise and was deep in debt to European creditors. The old palace lost part of its gardens to a railway.
The long-distance trains are gone now. Since 2013 the Marmaray tunnel has run commuter trains deep underground and under the Bosphorus to Asia, and the old terminus keeps its waiting room, a small railway museum and the faint smell of history. From the station, turn uphill away from the water and climb the steep streets of Hocapaşa towards Cağaloğlu. A bath built by a sultan is waiting at the top.