Turkey has long produced exquisite and practical Turkish homewares and objet d’art made from paper, stone and glass. Careful attention to detail and a focus on maintaining tradition, means many items are still being made using production methods dating back hundreds of years. Beautiful on their own merit, they conjure up images of distant lands…
The name Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is known the length and breadth of Turkey and beyond. There are statues, memorials and monuments in his honour all over the place and even a street named after him in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. One of the first places I ever visited related to Ataturk was the huge…
Back in April this year I wrote a list of must try Turkish foods for CNN Travel. My aim in putting it together was to let people know there’s more to Turkish cuisine than kebab and baklava. I made a conscious decision not to include a famous dish called Adana Kebab because, well, it’s famous….
In an effort to improve my Turkish and learn what’s going on in my neighbourhood, I regularly check out the Kadikoy Council website. That’s how I discovered their initiative, Dukkan Kadikoy Council Waste Free Shop. It sells products and foods that are long-lasting, ecologically sustainable, produced from indigenous seeds, non-poisonous and seasonal, sourced from local…
I often hear expats say how they wish there were libraries in Istanbul where they could go and hang out, somewhere to do some writing or just seek inspiration. Here are four easy to get to libraries in Istanbul anyone can enter without having to be a student, a paying member or by prior arrangement….
A few years ago I spent a fun afternoon and early evening picnicking with a big group of friends in Yildiz Park. After a lunch that went on for hours we decided to play frisbee, not an easy task as the park cascades rather steeply down towards the Bosphorus. This was especially unfortunate for the…
A few years ago, when the Coronavirus pandemic was ramping up I marked my birthday by sharing a selection of my favourite images from Istanbul mosques. I’m a Leo so I usually go large on birthdays with celebrations lasting at least a week and sometimes as long as a month. In the past I’ve enjoyed…
I’ve been using public transport since forever. I have a driver’s licence but to be honest, the idea of driving in Istanbul scares the living daylights out of me. Besides, the traffic is so heavy I’d prefer to be on a bus, train or ferry, free to chat, read or look out the window, rather…
Just before the December rains set in I took advantage of Istanbul’s blue sunny skies to go exploring. My aim was to find works by Raimondo D’Aronco, an Italian architect responsible for bringing Art Nouveau architecture to the city. Raimondo D’Aronco was born in Gemona del Friuli (by coincidence part of the district where my…
Everyone hopes their children and grandchildren go on to bigger and better things, but it’s unlikely Orhan Veli Kanik’s grandfathers expected their grandson would become a poet. They were both traders and yet they were exactly the people Veli had in mind when he created a new style of Turkish poetry directed at the people….