Istanbul, like its’ inhabitants, exists between two continents, with work and home, lover and beloved, night out and breakfast the next day on different sides of the Bosphorus Straight. This has been home for me the past nine years.
Istanbul has a frenetic energy that could be compared to New York City. Stage to a population explosion over the past 40 years, young people from across Anatolia migrated to Istanbul to cleave their destinies. It’s a young city full of interesting people who love socializing. Tea houses, coffee shops, and bars are littered around the city, brimming with people chatting and working. It’s not a morning city, still feeling sleepy at 10am, but buzzes into the night.
Today’s Istanbul cannot be considered a city on one plane. It is made of layers. There is Byzantium, Rome’s ancient sister city, existing in Sultanahmet’s crumbling shadows and in the jewel of the Hagia Sophia. The Ottoman’s Istanbul lives on in glory, palaces perched throughout the city, all open for us to visit. Then, there is modern Istanbul of Atatürk’s vision, which sprawls in every direction, as far as the eye can see. These generations of the same city mix and move together. Ottoman recipes come to life at Çiya in the bustling streets of Kadiköy. DJs playing techno music in an underground Constantinople cistern. The luscious breakfast spread on Sunday mornings in the Ottoman palace at Yıldız Park (previously Ottoman hunting grounds). The ongoing celebration of Epiphany, with the Greek Orthodox patriarch tossing a cross into the Golden Horn to be retrieved by devout swimmers.
This city is both a literal and figurative labyrinth of history, architecture, and culture. There is truly so very much to explore.
The Wayfaring Wren 