Nobody here in England would have a kebab for lunch let alone when sober – you’re just never quite sure what or where that doner meat has come from. However having just returned from Istanbul, I found myself eating various types of kebab at every opportunity. Mind you most of the restaurants in the tourist area sold little more than kebabs. Granted they were in vastly varied in their forms, but never-the-less still kebabs. For some reason eating this unknown meat in its home land seemed fine and it tasted fantastic (unlike many of the kebabs you get over here).

‘They Might Be Giants’ sang ‘Istanbul not Constantinople’ but I guess they must have been staying in a different area of the city to where I stayed. In this case Istanbul was most definitely Constantinople. Every direction you turned there was another historic building, from the Blue Mosque to the Topkapi Palace and the Basilica Cistern. Each of which still has such a sense of grandeur and sheer opulence, I imagine that all those centuries go, they must have been mind-blowing.

Four fully packed days in Istanbul and I only managed to see a small amount of the Sultanahmet, Seragio Point and Bazaar Quarter.There is so much to see, that four days just doesn’t do it justice. This is definitely a place to go back to for further exploration.
Photos can be viewed in my Flickr account here