Simits The quintessential Turkish bread product is the simit, a bread ring studded with sesame seeds that is a popular breakfast staple, especially…
For many people one of the great unsung pleasures of a visit to Bursa will be to discover the complex network and hans…
Mehmed Vedat Tek (1873-1942) was one of the architects most closely associated with the movement that came to be known as First National…
No one could visit Turkey and not come across Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the hero of the Turkish War of Independence (1919-23) and the…
I am stretched out on the marble slab in the centre of the Çemberlitaş Hamam, soaking up the steamy atmosphere of one of…
“Axe Harbour” The upmarket Bosphorus suburb of Baltalımanı is named after Kaptan–ı Derya Baltaoğlu Süleyman Bey, a 15th-century admiral who took his nickname…
Walking around Turkish towns you may occasionally see men with a mother rabbit and several babies sitting on a box beside little slips…
As all over the world, traditional handicrafts are dying an ever faster death in Turkey as the life-style they were part of gives…
Time has not been kind to Kağıthane, a messy suburb at the inland end of the Golden Horn that was once a famous…
“Mecid’s place” (presumably Abdülmecid’s) Poor old Mecidiyeköy has an unenviable location at the north-easterly end of Şişli’s Halaskargazi Caddesi where it meets up…