For nearly 1,000 years, as Byzantiurn and Constantinople, Istanbul wasthe urban center of the Western and Near Eastern worlds, with a populationof around 1 million -- 10 times the size of its nearest European rival.
By the 19th century its epic epoch was long over, but its sublime siteand mystical status as the city of the sultans had begun to attract thefashionable European tourist. They gave it a mixed press. The poetic sawstars.
"I have seen the ruins of Athens, of Ephesus, and Delphi," wrote LordByron in 1810, "hut I never beheld a work of nature or art, which yieldedan impression like the prospect on each side, from the Seven Towers tothe End of the Golden Horn."
The pedestrian scarcely lifted eyes from the gutter.
"View the exterior of Constantinople," wrote E.D. Clarke in the samedecade, "and it seems the most opulent and flourishing city in Europe:Examine its interior, and its miseries and deficiencies are so striking,that it must be considered the meanest and poorest metropolis of the world."
Today, Istanbul stffl wields the power to polarize the passions of itsvisitors. It's still a megalopolis, with an official population of 8 millionand an unofficial one of 13 million, and it's even more of a tourist destination,a plum in the city-break operators pie.
Once it represented the outer darkness of the package holiday, enticingonly the adventurous few; now it entertains serene groups of senior citizens,clutching their ready reckoners in the Grand Bazaar, unlacing their shoesoutside the Blue Mosque.
And it's still a city which, like that famous half-glass (is it halffullor half-empty?) separates optimists from pessimists. If you've traveledin Asia, then there's no great shock to the senses; Istanbul feels moreOccidental than Oriental.
Ifyou~e never been farther east than Naples, you may feel oppressedby its death-defying driving, exposed power cables, labyrinthine alleysand casual arrangemente for garbage disposal; you may not admire the survivalskills of its street urchins, toting shoeshine kite and bathroom scalesto offer services that keep them just clear of the beggar ciasa.
"Where East meets West?" sputtered one friend after his first visit."Where East meets East, if you ask me."
He hated the place, its cacophonic traffic, the crumbling masonry andflea markets above the Galata Bridge, the graceless postwar architectureof Taksim Square, the nylon socks and fake Rolex touts in the underpasses,the hustlers in the tourist heartland of Sultan Ahmet.
He hated it for all the things that make Istanbul more than merely aglorious repository of Islamic art and the histories of three empires,but a great merchant city on the crossroads of two continents; he loathedthe perpetual motion of a city whose salesmen never sleep.
He sew no romance in the shuttling fernes of the Bosphorus or the linesof freighters in the Sea of Marmars, waiting clearance for passage throughto the Black Sea; felt no excitement for the entrepreneurs of Ataturk Airport,the small-time capitalists who arrive daily from the dismembered SovietUnion and return with bags stuffed with clothing to sell on the streetsof Moscow and Tashkent.
His black propaganda -- the noise, the pollution, the hassles -mademe brace myself for disappointment on my first visit. But the reality wasexhilarating.
S HORT of arriving by sea or rail, we did the next best thing. Our taxitook the coast road from the airport, entering the city by its richestland route, which follows the railway of Agatha Christie and Graham Greenealong the Sea of Marmara to the Sirksci Station, terminus of the OrientExpress.
We reached the Golden Horn in a daze of delight. The urban giant, its13 rufflion residents tucked into hillsides and scattered along shores,seemed smaller, felt friendlier, looked greener and moved faster than anygridlocked concrete jungle has the right to expect.
Even the Olympian loftiness of the hotels and apartment blocks in thenew town, beyond the Galata Tower gets cut down to size by the sheer magnificenceof Istanbul s setting.
Only Islam's architects, the artist-builders of the Ottomans like MimarSinan who raised the Suleymaniye mosque, perfected the equation betweenart and nature and got the scale right. The citty's topography has beenits salvation.
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The Blue Mosque, named after the glowing Iznik tiles of its interior,is one of Istanbul's most spectacular sites.
Its levels are linked by cascades of stairs and precipitous alleys whichdefeat the car, and there's no traffic artery so cloJGGed that you can'tsense the breathing of its great aquatic lungs. What's more, the noveltyof pedestrianization is creeping through the city. We began to exploreby walking the length of Istiklal Caddesi an found ourselves unnexby thehush. Istiklal Caddesi traverses the district of Pera, which became thesocial and economic center of the city when the sultans moved from Topkapiacross the Golden 'and built the Dolmabahce Pala~ (Swissotel the Bosphorus,wher we stayed, looks over the palac roof to the geometric frieze of thold skyline and has appropriate most of the Dolmabahce's garden.
Once called the "Grande Rue d Pera," most of Istiklal Caddesi' eleganthotels and mansions hay disappeared beneath dull, post-wa redevelopment,but there are two splendid things about this elongat ed mall today. Oneis the veterin tram, which shuttles backward and forwards between TaksinSquare and the top terminus of the Tunel -- the one-step subway, th. shortestin Europe, which rockets down the steep hill of Galata
The other is the Cicek Pasaji, once a belle epoque shopping arcade,now an animated colony of inexpensive restaurants, gypsy musicians andnoisy taverns where the locals always outnumber the tourists.
"Cheap, eh?" grinned the waiter as we paid a bill of $20 for a selectionof seafood meze, two portions of shish kebab and a bottle of Doluca. TheTurks enjoy the expressions of shifty pleasure on the faces of Westerntourists when presented with bills.
Everything in Istanbul seems cheap to the visitor from London, Parisor New York, which makes its urban pressures easy to escape. The taxi drivershave a sixth sense for the flagging stamina of the sightseer and are alwaysthere when you need them.
And you know you're losing touch with reality when you start to thinkthat entry charges to museums like Topkapi and the Ayasofya are a littlesteep: $3.
O VER A LONG weekend we sidled into the city from our background readingand addressed its splendors modestly. On Saturday we crossed the GalataBridge to Eminonu, where all Istanbul's transport systems -ferries, buses,trains and the vintage Buicke and Plymouths which serve Turkey's dolrmustaxis -converge outside the Yeni Camii mosque, and the tiere of the oldtown stap upwards through the Spice Market and Grand Bazaar to the crowningglories of Topkapi and the major mosque complexes.
If cities have souls, then Istanbul's is right here, where the GoldenHorn meets the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara, and the most intense activityis the movement of people and the selling of things: from domestic fireextinguishers to fresh fish grilled over wood fires on moored ketchas.
Istanbul's commuters are fueled on this heavenly snack, served withsalad and lemon beetween leaves of fresh bread. Inspired, we took a taxito the fish market at Kumkapi and viewed the morning catch, then crossedthe road to eat it at one of the street restaurants.
This popular waterfront district still feels rustic, and the villageatmusphere persists among the overhanging timber houses of the streetsbelow the Hippodrome. Here we learned that not everyone who approachesyou in Istanbul wants to sell you something.
For all their fearsome history, the Turks are welcoming, and offer helpif they see you strnggling with maps. Thus we came to Sult~ Ahmet Camii,the mosque called Blue for the glowing Iznik tiles of its interior.
It was built to confront and outclass Constantine the Great's triumphalistchurch of St. Sophia, the ancient basilica which became a mosque underthe Ottomans but was secularized by Ataturk. Now it's the museum of Ayasofya;enid it feels abandoned, unlike the living place of worship across thesquare.
O N SUNDAYS, Istanbul takes to the water in search of lunch. The~e areplenty of Bosphorus boat tou~s but the bast bargain is the limited stopferry to Anadolu Kavag~, the last village on the Asian side before thestraits merge into the Black Sea.
Our return fare for the 90'minute voyage was just 15,000 lire (lessthan $2); deck space was limited but tho bustle of family parties was festive.Views unfolded from the guide books: the awesome fortress of Rumeli Hisanbeneath the arc of the Bosphorus Bridge, the graceful timber mansions calledyalis.
Of all the Bosphorus fishing villages, Anadolu Kavagi is the least oppressedby commuter traffic and development. It is charming, sleepy, dilapidated.It owes its protection to the restricted military zone which surroundsit, and though its hilltop Genoese fortrees is technically out of bounds,the energetic visitor can capture the castle without any awkward incidents.
We ate red mullet by the water while the prayer calls of the muezzinperformed duets across the straits -- Asia calling Europe. Every so oftencourteous salesmen in their Sunday best approached our table with basketsof peeled almonds. When we boarded i,he return ferry (the not untemptingoption, if we missed it, was to share a dolmus hack to town), the villagerestaurateurs were still brandishing platters of fish to lure us inside.
E VERY GREAT city has at least one legendary hotel and Istanburs isthe Pera Palace, where Agatha Christie wrote "Murder on the Orient Express"and international spies, including Mata Hari met to conspire and the pre-warguest list reads like "Who's Who in Europe."
We went there for a drink and were so charmed by its shabby splendorwe stayed for dinner. The hideous new expressway outside the dining roomcouldn't diminish its fin de siecle eccentricities, which include a muralof Botticelli's Venus in the ladies loo and an antique lift with a throne,elevating you like a divine being.
But the Pera Palace doesn't stand on past dignities; halfway throughdinner the chandeliers were swapped for multicolored disco lights and abelly-dancer materialized.
We didn't mean to spend so much time in the Kapali Carsi and neglectthe Harem Tour in Topkapi. But Istanbul, more than anything, is a seductiveseries of diversions and the Grand Bazaar, with its domed and painted ceilings,is a beautiful boilerhouse of consumer lust.
There, creative salesmanship and the noble sport of bargaining makeyou feel part of the city's most ancient tradition. We left Istanbul longingto return -- which is the best way to leave anywhere.