Dominic Sandbrook's Istanbul
9:52AM GMT 04 Jan 2013
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WHY ISTANBUL? I’ve loved Istanbul ever since my student backpacker days. It was once the capital of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, and I don’t think anywhere has such intoxicating reminders of past glories or such a rich atmosphere of cultural diversity. And the basic geography of the place is just extraordinary: the mosques rising above the Golden Horn, the ferries on the Bosporus, ploughing between Europe and Asia, the castles guarding the entrance to the Black Sea.
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