I've just returned from a three week trip to Istanbul and the UK with my daughter, Lisa, and my oldest granddaughter, Ellie. First stop was Istanbul for seven days. I had visited Istanbul twice previously but the last visit was over 40 years ago and the city has grown immenselly since then but fortunately the old part has been extremely well preserved.
Today Istanbul has a population of over 15million, 19% of the population of Turkiye and is the most populous city in Europe.
It is a really vibrant city-frantic, bustling and full of life. It reminded me of Hong Kong in its glory days. It has a wonderful mixture of cultures-European and Asian. Even at 10.30 at night the streets of the old city are alive. The food is wonderful and for me inexpensive.
For me one of the delights of Istanbul are its famous street cats.They really do love their cats and they are something very special. More on them later.
It's not all good news. I thwarted a team of pickpockets, dressed in burkas, who targetted me on a busy tourist street. Overtourism is a major issue. Cruise liners are exacerbating the problem. There are long queues to get into the major tourist sites.
Istanbul is served by the world's biggest airport. It is huge but despite its size it was struggling to handle the passenger numbers on the day we flew out.
The air quality in the city is very poor due to the traffic congestion. I saw very few EVs although this is changing as Turkey has a local vehicle manufacturer, Togg, producing an SUV EV which I saw is already being being used by the Istanbul police.
It was hot during my visit. The ambient temperature was over 30ºC and the heat island effect meant it was much hotter on the streets.
I took my Leica Q2 on the trip. Although it is in many ways an ideal travel camera I did find its weight and bulk too much on some days and resorted to using my iPhone for photography.
Here's the first batch of photos from the triptaken on the first days
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| A pretzel seller close by the Galata Bridge |
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| A street cat on a Merc and I'm sure the Merc's owner did not mind. |
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| Looking across the Golden Horn |
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| Golden Horn waterfront -early morning |
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| Looking across the Golden Horn to the Galata Tower |
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| Fishing from the Galata Bridge-early morning |
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