Istanbul

On first impressions Istanbul appears to be both first and second world at the same time. Very third if you happen to arrive via Topaki Bus Station on a wet winter's day. Where you will discover the station to be no more than a chaotic puddle ridden parking lot of ankle deep mud surrounded by piles of garbage. Garbage seems to be the key ingredient to Istanbul as you hunt for the city's jewels. Garbage bins and the employment of street sweepers do not feature high on the city's priorities. I can understand why its' citizens live in a  state of constants reflection as they walk past broken fountains, damaged sculptures and buildings. It must be depressing to hark back to the days of Empire when Istanbul was one of the great cities of the world with its constant reminders of that glorious past. The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk discusses this melancholic relationship in his book Memories of a City.

During our ten days stay my wife and I walked all over the city, somehow it all seemed familiar as though I had been here before in some past life. Even when we walked long distances across Istanbul we always emerge from the labyrinth of alleys and streets of the old city a block or two from where we thought we should be. I must confess I was very reluctant to visit Turkey, my Armenian heritage ensured that I had been fully briefed about the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1918.However I was only meet with kindness and good will ,at times complete strangers would come up to me and apologise for past events, at other times I would be greeted with a tacit smile from some unknown facet as a local returning with his German bride [my wife is blond] .

On one of our walks along the top of the old Byzantine city walls looking out across the rooftops of the old Armenian quarter towards the Sea of Marma we were quite shocked by the number of homeless men who seem to have made their home there. I must say they seemed quite threatening and I would not recommend you go alone. However the view across the mosques, palaces and churches is worth the effort. You could dream of the sum total of the city's multi-faceted history from Greek through Roman, Byzantine to Ottoman. Turkey in this sense is a must ,no where in Europe is it possible to view three, four thousand years of history in such detail.

Whether Turkey will ever become part of the European Union is any ones guess, there is certainly a lot of paranoia on the European side, a lot of distrust. This is a great pity as such hard line positions are not good for the world. But for all of that, the disorder, traffic and general disrepair there is always the people , their optimism in the future they really are waiting for the west to respond.