Çukurcuma sits at the bottom of the slopes running down from İstiklal. Twenty minutes on foot, and you will not feel it going down — allow for the way back.
The antique shops are what the neighbourhood does. There are around thirty, all small, all crammed, and many run by the same person for forty years. Ottoman copper, old cameras, records, chandeliers, frames. Haggling is normal but not the way it is in the Grand Bazaar: prices here start closer to real, so there is less room to come down.
The Museum of Innocence grew out of Orhan Pamuk's novel of the same name — or the other way round. The objects described in the book were actually collected and installed in a house. It works even if you have not read it: a sequence of vitrines holding 1970s Istanbul down to the cigarette ends, the ticket stubs, the lipstick caps. Bring the ticket page printed inside the novel and entry is free.
Coffee and food. The cafés here are small and most of them serve the neighbourhood rather than visitors. The menu may not be in English; pointing works.
When to go. Most of the antique shops are shut on Sunday and open late on Monday. Tuesday to Saturday, afternoon, is the safe window.
From here you can walk on to Cihangir or down to Tophane; both are ten minutes and both are downhill.