The Camondo Steps is a famous pedestrian stairway built in 1860 by the renowned Ottoman-Venetian Jewish banker family Camondo. It was designed with a unique mix of the Neo Baroque and early Art Nouveau styles.

The stairs climb the hill from the Galata docks and Bankalar Caddesi (Avenue of the Banks) up to the fashionable 19th-century neighborhoods where the Camondos built an imposing edifice to house a school.

These very special stairs have a hexagonal shape. It is said that this shape was arranged this way, so that if a child would slip while climbing down, the other bevel would prevent them from falling. These stairs were built to facilitate the transport of Camondo’s children to reach school and to cut down Camondos way to the Avenue of the Banks, built by them as well.