Istanbul, Turkey

Through our travels, we’ve been to some world-class cities. Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore – all awesome. Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Taipai, Tehran, Dubai - really cool. Jakarta, Manila - nooot our favorites. A few posts ago we talked about how we thought Athens was amazing - but Istanbul takes it to a whole other level.

With a river down the middle, the city physically straddles two continents. Europe on one side. The other, Asia…with a little, or maybe a lot, Middle East mixed in. It’s just the right amount of familiar, and even more intriguingly, interestingly, slightly intoxicatingly foreign.

Once the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and the center of early Orthodox Christianity, Constantinople, or Istanbul as we call it today, is a world all it’s own. You could spend a few lifetimes exploring all of the historical sites the city has to offer, and we did see quite a few, but the big hitters are definitely Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque, and Hagia Sophia.

Hagia Sophia was originally a basilica built sometime during the 6th century. For about 1,000 years, it was the largest enclosed structure on the planet. When the Ottomans took over in the 15th century, like most churches in the area, it was converted into a mosque. Today, it is preserved as a museum and even with the ongoing renovations, it is really quite impressive.

The Blue Mosque, officially Sultan Ahmed Mosque, is a little over 400 years old. It is free to visit, but it is still a working mosque, so there are certain restrictions on when you can visit and what parts are open. When it was originally constructed, mosques were not simply places of worship, but really centers of all city life. That is why the structure is so large, it contains dormitories, a market, a school, as well as fountains and courtyards that acted like city parks for families to congregate.

Topkapi Palace was the headquarters and main residence for the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 years. The palace complex and grounds are quite large, and everything is lavishly decorated.

Even if somehow you managed to not visit any historical sites, I can almost guarantee you would have an amazing time just exploring and meandering any of the many neighborhoods in the city.

All the main tourist sites are in the Old City, or the Sultanahmet area. We decided to stay across the bridge in the Beyoglu area of the Galata district. We found this area to be the right mix of locals with a good amount of tourist infrastructure built in.

It’s hard to articulate just how much we enjoyed this city, and even harder to explain why, but once you’re here, it’s very easy to understand. If we had to pick a major city to live in for a while, this would hands down be it. We’re very comfortable saying Istanbul is our favorite city yet!

From Istanbul, with love,

Will + Sara.