Istanbul Turkey

Charlotte Smith is entranced by a city that straddles east and west, and places an abundance of art, music and culture at the heart of its identity

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Istanbul is an astonishingly beautiful city. At its heart is the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, and acts as an important boundary between Asia and Europe. But more than its geographical and political significance, the Bosphorus is a wonderful shade of blue, its waves shining in warm sunlight that rarely fails to make an appearance throughout Turkey’s spring and summer months.

A boat trip along the Bosphorus affords spectacular views of a fascinatingly diverse city, with its array of churches and mosques – evidence of a history encompassing Greek and Roman rule during the Christian Byzantine era before its transformation into an Islamic stronghold following the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and near500 years of Ottoman rule.