Istanbul ahead
We returned last Sunday after a week in Istanbul. The visit wasn’t planned much in advance. A business trip to the city appeared in my wife’s calendar at short notice, and I decided to take a few days...
View ArticleIstanbul scenes – 2
On Wednesday morning, our fourth in Istanbul, P. and I found ourselves sitting on the floor in a ballet class with teenage boys and girls. The instructor, a short, wiry woman in her forties,...
View ArticleIstanbul scenes – 4
Our hotel was in a run-down neighbourhood in Beyoglu, not far from the touristy Istiklal Caddesi. The four storey building had been renovated, inside and outside, and it stood like a white swan (the...
View ArticleIstanbul’s Hauptstrasse
Living in Germany we’ve grown used to the concept of a pedestrian shopping street at the center of a city or a town. Cities here have an altstadt, with buildings a few centuries old, and the altstadt...
View ArticleMasumiyet Müzesi
On the Monday after we arrived in Istanbul, the day P. was busy with her conference, I decided to wander about the streets of Beyoglu. I had no particular destination in mind, although I hoped to cross...
View ArticleDodging tourists in Istanbul
In September last year, on a five-day vacation in Istanbul, my wife and I stumbled upon the Hagia Sofia. The irony here did not escape us, but what mattered more was that we had failed to escape the...
View ArticleIstanbul again
Come back safe! A colleague said to me, when he heard we were traveling to Istanbul. Apparently a few German journalists had been arrested recently in Turkey, and the German government had advised...
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