"Travel: Istanbul
Published Date: 25 October 2010
By Kate Wickers
Seventeen years ago, on a budget break to Istanbul, my boyfriend took me from our fleapit of a no-star hotel to the Orient Bar of the Pera Palace Hotel.
Amidst the Anglo-Ottoman splendour of its gilded ceilings, brass chandeliers and Turkish carpets he parked me in an enormous armchair, ordered two dry martinis and went down on one knee to propose. Unlike Greta Garbo, just one of the Pera's famous visitors, I did not 'want to be alone' so took him up on his offer."
More:Travel: Istanbul - The Scotsman