TravellingEurope/Istanbul

The ultimate in budget travel is taking a mental journey while relaxing in the safety of your own home armchair. Read Barbara Nadel's novels of murder and mayhem in Istanbul and you will have a great grounding for your first visit and a deeper understanding for subsequent visits.

I have learned more from her novels about the history, social history,architecture and present day tensions in Turkey than I would have done in umpteen visits.

As I follow her empathetic and sympathetic police hero Cetin Ikmen and his colleagues through the landscape of Istanbul, the accuracy of her descriptions and detailed knowledge of the issues affecting its citizens add layers of depth which haunt the imagination.

Pretty Dead Things by CWA Silver Dagger Winner Barbara Nadel is a thriller with links not only to the hippy invasions of the sixties but even further back in time to the ancient Byzantine architecture of the past.

Istanbul the city is not so much a background as an all-pervasive influence in her plots. If you can't afford an immediate visit, Barbara Nadel's books are for me the best way to go.

I really enjoyed this article in World Hum It captured some contradictory reflections from this most beautiful city.

Southampton is one of my favourite British airports. It is small enough and personal enough to make flying pleasurable.

This time I was amazed and delighted to see a small stall of brightly coloured, inexpensive holiday clothes imaginatively packaged in tiny boxes.

T Box of Istanbul is a great idea --you could buy all your holiday clothes at the airport and fit them easily into your hand baggage allowance.

A T-Box site

This site is from Australia so the dollar sign is Australian dollars. One AUD equals approximately 0.91 USD but prices vary from country to country.

I chose it as it seems faster loading than the British site and the American site would not load at all on my slow connection.

The clothes all compress into sttractive packages, square, rectangular, heart-shaped--would make a great Valentine's present--and lollipop packs for headbands and belts.

Summer, winter, everyone catered for. What a great idea with all the bright colour and warmth of Istanbul itself.

Just back from a whizz around Europe from London to Istanbul, by train through Bulgaria to Veliko Tarnovo, by bus to Sofia (narrowly missing George Bush) and back to London.
I have four commissioned travel articles to write. I've lost the magic notebook and the worlds I've passed through are just whirring through my head with no logic at all.
The first two articles are due at Garden and Hearth this weekend. Then I'll be straight back to log the special notes here.
The photo of the Golden Horn was taken from the cable car between the Pierre Loti cafe and the Sultan mosque at Eyup.

Dover Publications have a number of beautifully illustrated books selling for almost half price in their summer sale.

The book with CD on Traditional Turkish Designs is also featured in their free sampler newsletter which lets you copy three pages of certain featured books each month.

As the picture allowance with the article is small, I have chosen the individual samples as illustrations.

Here is a sample of the animals in Traditional Turkish Designs, by Azade Akar published by Dover Publications and released as a sample illustration this month.

It is one of an electronic clip art series and comes with a CD-ROM.

This is the third sample illustration from the Dover Publications CD.ROM and book on Traditional Turkish Designs.

The

Around 200 foreign journalists have been accredited to cover the Turkish elections due to take place next week.

Britain has 45 journalists in place, America 20. Many are based in Ankara, the capital, though Istanbul also has its fair share.

The Turkish Daily News today (July21) published a profile of BBC reporter Ben Hammersley and his use of modern technology in compiling his reports.

Although we had heard of unrest prior to our visit to Istanbul at the end of June, we neither saw nor felt anything to worry us during our time there.

Granted we landed on the day of the Red Bull Air Race when the grumbles were more about litter left by the millions watching from the banks of the Bosphorus than about political parties.

However, these are elections the world will be watching closely for various reasons.

An interesting background summary is given in a freelance article on Turkish elections by journalists Suzan Erem and Paul Durrenberger in the Monthly Review.

It's a long article and the Monthly Review is staunchly labour in its political stance but it certainly helped me sort out my confusion of ideas on what is a complicated issue.

The BBC has been compiling a series of reports, one of which was broadcast on Radio 4 this week but hopefully I have managed to link to Ben Hamersley's second report on the Turkish elections in video format.

His first report starts out talking to the minority group of Kurds and ends with him locking himself out of his recording equipment.

Haven't done that yet but I have still lost the notebook.

If you're looking for the Air Race videos from Red Bull 2007, there are three listed at the bottom of the race website page for the moment. Nine more You Tube videos at the end of this lens.

Sadly the world's online voters did not chose Hagia Sophia as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Voting closed at midnight on Saturday July 6,2007. And the top seven results were announced from Lisbon on 07-07-07.

My vote was timed out twice before I gave up. I shall always wonder if that would have made the difference.LOL.

Despite that, visit the New Seven Wonders to see the results announced in Lisbon and now it's the seven wonders of the natural world you're being asked to vote for.

The Live Earth concerts going on around the globe will not include a concert in Istanbul or will they?

The news broke last week that lack of funding was causing Turkish organisers to cancel even their last minute plans for a smaller event.
The BBC report on the cancellation.

Yet now the Google news report issued only three days before the event seems to suggest otherwise.

However on careful rereading, that part of the interview took place over a month ago. So much for new news.

NOTE: The Live Earth concerts going on round the globe will be televised by over 100 stations and streamed by MSN. Over two billion people are expected to watch the events either live or on screen. Madonna of course is one of the stars of the London concert.

For an article on children's museums offering hands on exhibits, learning and entertainment opportunities read Family friendly Istanbul

Spot the mistakes and I'll feature you and your lens here.

The photo, again from the roof terrace of the Hotel Ambassador, shows the trams that run through Sultanahmet down to the Sirkeci (the old Orient Express terminal), the spice market, the harbour and now across the Galata bridge to the Anatolian side of the Bosphorus where many of the children's museums mentioned in the article are situated.

Google news threw up this article on the Chinese Bride at the end of June.
I have saved it here for as long as its own link in Today's Zaman lasts.
This English daily is on its way to becoming the largest circulation daily in English in Turkey and searching through its articles and illustrations has been a revelation.
The article on Istanbul in 20 monuments or less which I found on a link from the travel pages provoked a wry smile.
I may well become an addict of the e-gazette.

British newspaper the Daily Telegraph has just announced the winning submission in its Seven Wonders of the World contest. (June 30 2007)
This article on the contest quotes the winning entry on the Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia photo from a shared Photobucket album.
The winner gets a trip to Egypt -- perhaps he might have preferred to return to Istanbul?
The final seven chosen by the public on an online voting site will be announced on July 7 so you may still have time to vote for your favourites if they have made the short list.
Interesting that in this article from Australia on the Seven Wonders of the World the Hagia Sophia appears as a consistent choice from their top architects too.

If you're trying to raise visibility and generate traffic for a site of your own, try linking to a relevant site and remember to ask for a link back.

It could prove an interesting way to pick up back links and promote more traffic to think about your topic. I shall experiment by finding other interesting sites on visiting Istanbul. I'll monitor results in a month and let you know what I think.

Image from Sevenoaks Art again --I really do like these. Find them at Sevenoaks Art.