Before I went, I had heard Istanbul described as being like Rome inthe late fifties, and when I got there, I saw why. In the chaos of peoplerushing to the office or the street market or the mosque there is an overarchingsense that a city with a glorious past half-buried by grime and neglectis about to emerge as a world capital. The city's population has nearlyseptupled since the fifties, and now many of the new arrivals are hopefulemigrants from Eastern Europe. Scene-conscious Parisians and, yes, Romansare buying second (or third or fourth) houses in deliciously seedy Edwardianand Art Nouveau neighborhoods. Life is still cheap, the excellent traditionalfood is mostly untouched by foreign influence, and bars and cafes (althoughnot restaurants) stay open late.

The tension between proud anachronism and make-it-up-as-you-go stylehits you as soon as you step out on the street. Everyone seems alive topossibility. In the course of one evening's stroll I saw both traditionallyand daringly dressed young people, European tourists in various worldlyguises, rough-hewn young men in boisterous conversation at a street market,and a big group of transvestites with strong New York accents raucouslypiling into a dolmus--one of the fleet of meticulously maintained fat fiftiesAmerican cars that serve as group taxis--and dishing each other as theypredicted who would win the competition they were headed for.

The ideal way to arrive in Istanbul would be to sail in at dusk, whenthe distractions of the day are blunted and the city wears its storybookface. First you cruise along the Bosporous, the strait that divides Europeand Asia--the city sits on both continents; tourist sights and shops areon the European side, and quieter residential districts are on the Asian,or Anatolian, side. Then you round the Golden Horn and enter the harborthat made the site a natural center of commerce and a natural choice forthe eastern capital when the Roman Empire was divided, at the end of thefourth century.

The two buildings most tourists first visit dominate the view of theold city: the Haghia Sophia, the sixth-century basilica whose great domeand vast covered space remained unequaled the world over for a thousandyears, and beside it the Blue Mosque, or Sultan Ahmet, the Ottoman responseto the architectural challenge that the church--by then converted to amosque--presented. Up and down the hill are more floodlit gray-white marblemosques, their cascading domes and half domes and sharp minarets so muchthe stuff of Arabian-nights fantasies that it is startling to realize theirform derived from a church and was refined only in the 1500s, just whenRenaissance architects, too, were surpassing the feats of the ancients.

I decided during my explorations that a first-time visitor should postponethe greatest-hits lists found in guidebooks and organize his or her discoveryof the city by following the work of the architect who defined Istanbul.Mimar Sinan (1489-1588) was fixated on the Haghia Sophia, and in his lifelongefforts to exceed its achievements he created some of the world's mostbeautiful buildings. Dwelling for a time in their serene, perfect spacesis the best route to understanding the city. Too, visitors can enter mosquesduring services--something forbidden in most nonsecular Islamic states(Turkey is secular).

Sinan's masterpiece is Suleymaniye, the mosque named for his chief patron,Suleyman the Magnificent. So mesmerized was I by the interior--there'sa kind of secret garden behind, with lovely tomb buildings--that I stayedfar longer than I had intended. Across the street from Suleymaniye, halfhidden by a stone screen and trees, is the movingly restrained tomb ofSinan himself. In the unrenovated neighborhood down the hill behind theBlue Mosque--one of the few areas of central Istanbul in which wooden housesfrom the turn of the century remain--is the tiny Sokollu Mehmet Pasa Camii(camii means "mosque"), designed by Sinan and as perfect as Suleymaniye.

Also first-rate but usually given secondary importance in guidebooksis Kariye, built as the Church of St. Saviour in Chora ("the country"),fifteen minutes by taxi from the old city. From 1315 to 1321 Kariye wasrebuilt, and mosaics and frescoes of the lives of Christ and the Virginwere installed--among the most spectacular works of Byzantine art extant,recalling Giotto in their depth and expressiveness (they are contemporaneous,if half a continent away). Seen at close range on the walls and fluteddomes of the small church, the mosaics and frescoes overpower you.

The sprawling Topkapi Palace deserves its must-see status, but it isbest visited in carefully planned forays. The most logical first move afterentering is to traverse two of the four sequential courtyards and findthe line to pay the separate admission to the harem. The secret, teeminglife within the harem (the word means "forbidden" in Arabic) inspired Westernartists and writers for hundreds of years, especially in the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries, when the Ottoman Empire was on the wane and palaceintrigue grew ever more lurid. The former kitchens, with enchanting rowsof onion-dome ceramic chimneys designed by Sinan, house one of the world'sgreat collections of Chinese porcelain, and I returned several times tosee it. I quickly walked out of the treasury, however. This is where youfind the famous thrones and scimitars and headdresses encrusted with softball-sizedgems, all of which look fake, and the emerald dagger from the film Topkapi,which gyrates like a mechanical fortune-teller's head.

The rich beauty produced under the auspices of the sultans is betterseen at the Cinili Kosk, a pavilion now devoted to ceramic art which ispart of the archaeological museum complex a five-minute walk from Topkapi,or at the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, across from the Blue Mosque.Also superb are the floral Iznik tiles in the Rustem Pasa mosque, a latework by Sinan right in the center of the old city. These, too, are unjustlyaccorded secondary status.

Everyone will tell you to visit the Grand, or Covered, Bazaar (KapaliCarsi), the heart of the old city, itself a city: there are said to bemore than 4,000 shops in its fifty acres. But few will warn you flat outagainst buying a rug, for which you'll likely pay more than you would athome. You simply won't win the game of bargaining. The best values aresilver and gold, which are sold by weight no matter the age or the amountof ornamentation. If you're serious about antiques or miniatures and willingto pay for good ones, bypass the many shops in the bazaar and go to Sofa,on the elegant nearby shopping street Nuruosmaniye.

The bazaar's maze of streets, interrupted by tea stands and old coffeehouses, seems thrillingly confusing, but in fact you're never more thana five-minute walk from a way out. The adjoining Egyptian Spice Bazaar(Misir Carsisi) drew me not only for its dozens of kinds of olives andother foodstuffs but for the wonderful Kurukahveci coffee shop, with itsoriginal 1930s decorations and odors of roasting coffee that reach farbeyond the shop's central corner location. My take-home purchases in thebazaar were superior pistachios, dried figs, saffron fanned like a peacock'stail inside round plastic containers like petri dishes, and Iranian caviarsold in tins and vacuum-sealed in plastic for extra-safe storage. I foundexcellent quality and very good prices at Acar, a shop that takes up twolarge spaces in the bazaar.

The best place to stay is in the modern part of the city, across theharbor from the Golden Horn, near Taksim Square. Even if this isn't wherethe sights are, it's where the better restaurants and most of the contemporarycity's life are. The Ataturk Cultural Center, where you can find ballets,concerts, and operas, runs along one side of the square. Here the hotelsare modern, with the exception of the Pera Palas Hotel, whose Art Nouveautrain-station grandeur is probably better viewed at tea in the marvelouslyrestored cafe, or at dinner, than from one of the rooms, which are saidto be noisy and unreliably renovated.

I stayed at the Hilton, a handsome 1950s International Style buildingin its own large private park a five-minute walk from Taksim Square, andI would stay there again for its luxurious calm and central location, evenif the service did need sharpening and the big rooms refurbishment (somerecently got it). Business travelers not on budgets prefer the modern Swissotel,on the water in a less central part of Taksim; those who really want tosplurge stay at the Ciragan Palace Hotel Kempinski, a showily restoredOttoman palace from the past century, which is too opulent for my taste.

Istanbul's food, much of it blessedly based on long-cooked vegetables,is often wonderful and, except at a few pretentious restaurants, is servedin simple surroundings that provide few clues to its quality. (Don't drinkthe water or eat unpeeled fruit: take it from someone who did.) Every restaurantserves a plentiful selection of meze, or antipasti, from which I made upmost of my meals. The many cooked salads contain an abundance of vegetableswe associate with Italy, along with components more familiar farther east,such as red-pepper paste, walnut sauces, grape leaves, cracked wheat, yogurtand feta cheese, and sweet spices in savory dishes; these refined cuisines,of which Turkish is likely the greatest, are beautifully traced in PaulaWolfert's new The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean. The waterfrontrestaurants of Karakoy specialize in fresh grilled fish--the dinner mostvisitors, and residents, prefer. I liked the soups and stews at Haci Abdullah,near Taksim Square, a simple cafeteria-style restaurant where I boughtmany homemade jams from the shelves that line the entranceway.

My survival food was simit, big dark rings of sesame-covered bread stackedon pushcarts all over the city; vendors carrying wooden trays laden withthem, often still warm, are a frequent and welcome sight. A simit is morethan a sesame bagel ever dreamed it could be.

The Berlitz guide is concise and helpful, the Rough Guide far more thoroughand very well written; unusually, the Cadogan Guide is slapdash. The newKnopf guide, characteristic of the snappily designed French series, hasexciting color pictures on every page but is confusingly organized. Istanbulhands swear by Strolling Through Istanbul--a dauntingly complete guide,like Giulio Lorenzetti's to Venice, that is not for the traveler who hasvery limited time or who expects up-to-date information. But it is invaluablefor learning about the small and seemingly undiscovered mosque before you.

When you need a break from walking, spend a day on the ferry that zigzagsalong the Bosporous (there are two departures a day from a pier in theold city). Even if this is how many Istanbullus get to and from work, everyoneseems to be on holiday, gossiping, eating fresh yogurt in glasses and drinkingthe hot tea that vendors sell, pointing out to each other the palaces andfortresses and mosques and gingerbread houses and estates. The fare isabout a dollar. I don't believe I've ever taken a pleasanter cruise.

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Corby Kummer is a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly.