Day Seventeen - Istanbul

My last and Claire's penultimate day in this city and we still don't feel like we've scratched the surface of its vibrant cosmopolitanism and preserved heritage.

I'm not keen but Claire persuades me to take an unofficial tour down the Bosporus which, aside from costing more than the state-recognised trips, seems to take place in a vessel of far more dubious seafaring calibre.

The trip is a relaxed and effective way of seeing the parts of Istanbul that they won't bother showing you from land. As we drift toward the Black Sea we can see large, modern houses, men (never women) diving recklessly into the surly blue river from precipitous balconies and children playing boisterously in leafy parkland.

There are also Turkish flags everywhere you turn. There are more red flags than at the Indy 500 and they serve as an incandescent indicator of this country's fierce patriotism.

We eat fresh mackerel kebabs for just less than a pound and head back to the hotel for that most soul-destroying of tasks: packing.

As we sip our last Efes (the sweet taste of which, I recently found out, can be attributed to the amounts of sugar they add after fermentation) in a side-street bar, a news report comes on the TV.

There are hastily composed shots of wounded men and women and distressed men weeping into the arms of others in the street. The waiter says that four bombs have this morning exploded in the Asian part of town, place we drifted past no less than two hours previous. It's testament to Istanbul's vastness that we can be less than two miles away from an alleged terrorist attack and not have a clue.

I will miss Istanbul, especially as I wile away the uncomfortably warm nights on the trains. It truly is a place city of two worlds, not separate but intermingled to provide a unique atmosphere of extravagance, piety and (except, it seems for tonight) a celebratory tolerance.