All around the Aya Sofya are solid reminders of the city’s longevity and its glorious past. A few hundred metres to the north is Topkapi Palace, where the Ottoman sultans lived and governed in opulent splendour. A few hundred metres to the south is the Blue Mosque, whose slender minarets define the city’s skyline. Beside that is the old Roman hippodrome, garnished with an Egyptian obelisk. Walking around Istanbul it’s hard to imagine another city that can rival it as an open air museum.

Yet this is no ghost town, no dyed in the wool city trading on old memories. Following the demise of the Ottoman Empire, its renaming as Istanbul and its demotion from capital city, the old city is once again on the rise. Although Ankara is now the political capital of Turkey, situated at the country’s geographic heart, Istanbul dwarves it in population, and also in vibrancy. Adorned with some of the finest architectural and artistic wonders in the world, and with an extraordinary historic legacy on every street corner, Istanbul remains Turkey’s real social, artistic, and commercial hub, brimming with vitality and activity. Growing at an exponential rate, from 3 million in 1970 to a behemoth with some 11 million inhabitants today, the city continues to be the ultimate cultural crossroads. Its lure and pull are stronger than ever - for a great many people its streets still appear paved with gold.

copyright Peter Sommer 2006