The good, bad and ugly sides to being a tourist in Istanbul
Turkey’s cultural capital is a buzzing transcontinental beauty spot, but urbanisation, economic growth and fanatical soccer fans can take their toll on the visitor experience
THE GOOD
When it comes to boat rides, there aren’t many that give Hong Kong’s Star Ferry a run for its money. First, you need a dramatic skyline. It also helps if the vessel plies a world-famous body of water, and if a pod of dolphins should skim by, then so much the better. The 20-minute journey from Besiktas to Kadikoy, in Istanbul, ticks all the boxes and more. Ferries dart across the Bosphorus, a busy bottleneck that bisects one city and two continents, for three lira (85 US cents) a ride.
Tourists on the top deck train their cameras on the historic Sultanahmet district, with its mosques, churches and palaces dating from Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman times. There are magical views towards Hagia Sophia; once a church, then a mosque and now a museum; the opulent Topkapi Palace and the mesmerising minarets and domes of the Blue Mosque.
And if you don’t spy any bottlenose dolphins, you might instead spot humans splashing away. The annual Bosphorus Cross-Continental swim sees 1,500 super fit souls race from Asia to Europe in an event organised by the Turkish Olympic Committee.
Napoleon Bonaparte is reputed to have said: “If the world were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.” Once known as Byzantium and then Constantinople, Turkey’s economic, cultural and financial epicentre is also a tourism heavyweight – it was the world’s eighth most visited city in 2016.
