Tag Archives: Turkey

Beyoğlu’s resilience.

Posted on 09/03/2019 by awtytravels

I’ve since long harboured the dream of having – or, more modestly, staying at – a house on the Bosporus. Something with balconies abutting the waterfront, or perhaps a terrace with a view of the passing ships, a bottle of … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Turkey | Tagged B&W, Beyoglu, Beşiktaş, Bukowski, Busker, Colour, Dolmabahçe, Europe, Galata, Galata tower, Genoa, Greatest show, Istanbu, Istiklal Caddesi, Karaköy, Music, No ticket, People, People watching, Pera, Police, Turkey, Turks, Vodafone arena, Water cannon | 19 Comments

Faces of Ortaköy.

Posted on 02/03/2019 by awtytravels

Today’s a popular day to be in Ortaköy. Day-trippers are flocking to the waterfront. Outnumbered, the locals have made a hasty retreat to the fishmonger’s. Better let the tide ebb away. Only one thing is for sure: tomorrow, they’ll all … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Turkey | Tagged Artichoke, Örtaköy, Bosporus, Europe, Fish, Fish Market, Greengrocer, Istanbul, People, People watching, Photograph, Saturday, Turkey, Urban photography, Water, Weekend | 9 Comments

Vapur abstraction.

Posted on 28/02/2019 by awtytravels

There’s a concept I sometimes hear from my software engineer chums: abstraction, or the process of removing all sorts of attributes – be them physical, spatial, temporal – to get to the root of something (usually a system, since we’re … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Turkey | Tagged Asia, Atatürk, çay, Balat, Bosporus, Conscript, Crow, Eminönü, Europe, Eyup, Fener, Ferry, Golden Horn, Istanbul, Karaköy, People, People watching, Platoon, Sea, seagull, Sehir Hatlari, Soldiers, St Mary of the Mongols, tespih, Turkey, Turyol, Vapur, Water, Yusufpaşa | 13 Comments

Istanbul 6 AM

Posted on 22/02/2019 by awtytravels

Les travestis vont se raser Les strip-teaseuses sont rhabillées Les traversins sont écrasés Les amoureux sont fatigués Or so sang Jacques Dutronc in his masterpiece Il est cinq heures, Paris s’éveille It’s 6AM in Istanbul, but we’re a couple of … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Turkey | Tagged Aksarai, Ayasofya, Dutronc, Galata, Golden Horn, Hotel, Il est cinq heures, Istanbul, Morning, New Mosque, Night, Paris, Paris s'éveille, simit, Street, Suleymaniye, Turkey | 17 Comments

Songs for the Road 7 – Now with even less sense!

Posted on 29/05/2018 by awtytravels

The hot season is definitely upon us (at least, as much as it can be for London) and the poor algorithm that chooses the Your Mix selection on Youtube must be excused to be thinking that the heat has made me … Continue reading →

Posted in Music review, Odd ones out | Tagged Acid Arab, Bomba éstereo, Cantaloupe island, Cem Yıldız, Cenotes, Cumbia, Dave Brubeck, El Búho, France, Herbie Hancock, La Haine, Latin America, Les Sages Poètes de la Rue, Lulacruza, Mexico, Minimal, Music, Music for the road, Music recommendations, Neşe Karaböcek, Norway, Rave, Shanghai, Smilla, Spanish, Stil, Take Five, Techno, Todd Terje, Turkey, Youtube | 12 Comments

Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

Posted on 16/06/2016 by awtytravels

The service on the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was appalling. Having been treated to an atrocious pre-flight video, an attendant who clearly desired to be everywhere but there started thrashing around cups of weak coffee and tried, indolently, to sell stale … Continue reading →

Posted in Armenia, Caucasus, Europe | Tagged Armenia, Armenian Genocide, Genocide, Germany, Ottoman Empire, Syria, Turkey, WWI, Yerevan, Yerevan Memorial | 11 Comments

Notes from the fringes of the Empire: Yerevan.

Posted on 11/05/2016 by awtytravels

Yerevan lies in a bowl shaped like the tongue of a cat, delimited on one side by the Hrazdan gorge, and on the others by steep hills, on which stand strange perches and other abstruse relics of the Soviet past. … Continue reading →

Posted in Armenia, Caucasus, Europe | Tagged Ararat, Armenia, Caucasus, City, Iron Curtain, Metro, Russia, Soviet Union, Turkey, USSR, Yerevan | 8 Comments

Away from the Golden Horn – what lies outside Istanbul’s centre (1/2).

Posted on 07/04/2016 by awtytravels

Symbols you won’t find on your keyboard: Beşiktaş and Örtaköy. I turned a corner on Beşiktaş caddesi and basically run into them. Milling around on civilian buses and police vans, sitting besides the mammoth hydrants that usually turn up, at … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Istanbul, Turkey | Tagged Ayran, Örtaköy, Büyük Mecidiye Camii, Beşiktaş, Bosphorus, Hagya Sophia, Kabataş, Lale devri, Turkey, Yahya Efendi sokak | 5 Comments

The places in between: wanders through Fener and Balat.

Posted on 31/03/2016 by awtytravels

I saw them from the above, a rare treat for a city like Istanbul, where landings seldom come from the north: huddled close together, squashed between the Golden Horn and the minarets of Ottoman mosques, were the houses and streets … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Faith, Istanbul, Turkey | Tagged Balat, Beyazid, Constantinople, Fener, Galata, Golden Horn, Istanbul, Mehmed II, Saint Mary of the Mongols, Turkey | 10 Comments

Börek, burek, byrek, byorek, bouréki: a food pilgrimage.

Posted on 05/11/2015 by awtytravels

In 1389 a momentous event happened, something that changed the landscape of the Balkans, and of much of Central Europe, for ever. The armies of Murad I, no longer held in check by the Byzantine empire, swarmed into the Balkan … Continue reading →