Istanbul: Its worth it !

This Christmas I went with my

family to Istanbul for nine days,
including Christmas Eve and New
Years Eve.
These are all the slogans which I had
heard and read about Istanbul before
going.....
"Istanbul.....the most inspiring city in the world"
"Istanbul: the dream city"
"The citys best..........) are true.
The city is wonderful, impressive, great.... all the strong positive ad!ectives that
you can imagine could be used to describe Istanbul. Its a special city for different
reasons"
The place or location.
#etween Europe and $sia, a uni%ue place in the world.The #osphorus divides both
parts, and the &olden 'orn divides the
European part. You can see the different seas easily, because the city is on many
hills.
Domes and minarets...
are present anywhere. There are about one thousand mos%ues in the city. Every
two hours, more or less, you can hear the call to prayer. The sights and sounds are
very spiritual.
Istanbuls people.
They are friendly and polite. The city is very
lively, the population is () million and I thin*
that everybody is always in the streets.
Monuments.
Istanbul, or Constantinople in the past, has been home to
three great empires" The Eastern +oman, The #y,antine
Empires and The -ttoman Empires. The inheritance is"
.anta .ophia, the #lue /os%ue, Top*api 0alace and a
lot of great monuments.
Last but not least reason"
It1s a city whose silhoutte mingles minarets and domes with cutting2edge
contemporary architecture, traditional /uslim clothes with cool, short s*irts.They
believe in their traditions but they want to be li*e modern Europe.

-verall I felt fine, with a lot of pleasant feelings. The reasons mentioned, together
with the comfortable flat of our friend 3idia made it a perfect trip.
Written by Javier Gome !a"a