Europe

Flying in over Asia minor I had my first glimps of the baren soil which on first impression contrasted to the green we are used to in North Western Europe. However, for Istanbul this illusion was soon shattered, since despite being at my furthest point from Scotland the city appeared at the same time central and familiar.

We headed from a retaurant hidden in the old town through the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophya, which directly compete with each other in stature and in their calls to prayer, through the uselessly extravagent palace, which was abandoned due to a change in European platial fassion, to look out from the innermost courtyard at the long suspension bridge from Europe to Asia and the shipping terminals at the head of the Sea of Marmora. I felt reorientated.

To the north the banks of the Bosphorus Straight consistend of a series of commecial hubs featuring modern glass towers, palatial embassies, historic market villages and costal mansions averaging in the €10´s of millions (as any self respecting turkish or international CEO has snapped up a home here). The commercial spirit of the likes of the spice market in the Egyptian Bazzar was kept alive late into the night with men fishing from the bridges over the Golden Horn and serving them up on barbeques to passers by whilst white gulls circled the minarets of Mosques washed in a blue light.