Tag: istanbul

And so continues my quest to cover all the performance halls in Istanbul, in the name of art and music. And the next venue...

If you are into classical music at all, there is no chance that you have not heard of Yehudi Menuhin. He is the single most...

Has your luggage ever been delayed significantly? This past summer I found myself in Istanbul without any of my bags. They eventually arrived 3...

Republic Day (Cumhuriyet Bayramı) is this Wednesday, 29 October, and the holiday officially begins Tuesday afternoon. Republic Day commemorates the declaration of the Republic of...

Istanbul has been around since 660 B.C., back when it was Byzantium. Bach is more than 300 years old. Neve Shalom Synagogue is from...

You can walk into any chain bookstore in Istanbul and find stacks of neatly ordered books. Normally, they have the recently published stuff, and...

Why isn't love enough?  It's hard to compete with rakı while overlooking the Bosphorus.  It's even more difficult to suggest that your taste buds might...

Istanbul attracts all sorts of heroes and magnificent freaks. And I am not talking about Sean Connery or Liam Neeson. Meet Thomas, who calls himself...

If you have ever strolled through the ferry port of Beşiktaş on the European side of Istanbul, chances are you have walked past a...

Çay is the traditional black tea of Turkey... and one of my favorite things about day-to-day life in this country.  Even if you are more...

I often think of Istanbul as a woman – charming, sexy, moving to a certain flow or rhythm. Sometimes, I think that rhythm is...

As one of the fanciest areas in Kadıköy, Moda has so many great places to eat and socialize that it's really hard to surprise...

The Princes' Islands (Adalar) are a chain of nine small islands in the Sea of Marmara, about 20 km east of the center of...

For the second half of our interview, I asked Doug about his "Summer in Turkey" class.  Not only did this course have a tremendous influence...

With its long and colourful history, its unique geographical position, its collection of characters, cultures, and creeds, Istanbul has no shortage of laudable attributes....

  Fear not fellow summer lovers! Yes, September approaches and all your expat teacher friends are bemoaning the end of their two-month-long vacations, but the...

Nowadays Istanbul is known for its mosques, but prior to 1453, Constantinople was a completely Christian city replete with churches. Many of them exist to this day:...

One day I went a-wandering. I set out for an entire day of tourism, hitting some of Istanbul's must see hot-spots. I had planned...

There comes a time for all of us when we have to purchase Turkish souvenirs for curious kith and kin back home. To get...

It seems that the staff at the Cemil Topuzlu Open-Air Amphitheater had me in mind when scheduling this month's program. It feels as if...

Surprising to say, but Ottoman palaces in Istanbul are a dime a dozen. Palaces were a necessary part of imperial life, but after the...

Perhaps he is not the kind of musician you hear about that often; you won’t see his pictures on billboards, nor can you watch...

One of the most intriguing programs of the IKSV Istanbul Music Festival was without a doubt the evening that featured the renowned Russian composer...

Goran Bregovic's latest album, Champagne for Gypsies (2012), was intended as a criticism of the recent discrimination against the Roma people, one of the largest European...